Brian O'Neill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Around Town: We can't afford to keep quiet about saving libraries:
"Do we want Pittsburgh to be a great city or not?
That was the unintentional question posed in the fall of 2009 when the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh announced plans to close five of its 19 branches.
The library board backed off when citizens raised the dickens about any move to raze the Dickens.
Raising money is a bit harder. A variety of stopgap measures have kept all branches open, but what the library desperately needs is a dedicated funding source.
Andy Carnegie left some beautiful buildings, but he didn't endow them. The library has to go hat in hand to the city, state and Regional Asset District each year for funding, and the first two legs of that trio have been consistently inconsistent.
Library directors need to crank up individual and corporate giving to build up the endowment, and city voters may be asked in November whether libraries are worth a few dollars."
No comments:
Post a Comment