Libraries struggle with shrinking budgets, bitter book battles, influx of homeless

U.S. libraries, beset by book controversies, shrinking budgets, an influx of homeless and the ongoing loss of their readers to the Internet, are struggling to adjust to a post-pandemic reset that has many communities looking at cutbacks and closings.

The University of California-Berkeley recently announced plans to shutter three libraries — including the public school’s 45,000-volume anthropology collection, one of only three in the nation alongside Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania — to save $5 million in an overhaul of the library system.

Administrators intend to shrink the number of UC-Berkeley libraries from 23 to 10 hub libraries and seven satellites with fewer services, shorter hours and no on-site librarian in some cases.

According to a 2022 report from the Chronicle of Higher Education, “The Library of the Future,” college librarians, hoping to tempt students out of their dorm rooms and back into underutilized libraries, are rapidly replacing empty periodical rooms and untouched book collections with open “maker spaces,” computer labs and technology rooms wired for individual and group study.

That reflects the reality that e-books and online journals now dominate most student research outside of the humanities, said Jeremy Ott, UC-Berkeley’s classics and Germanic studies librarian.

“Academic libraries are alive, but in many cases imperiled, as they continue to provide vital scholarly resources and services despite the impact of declining budgets that is particularly felt at public institutions with diminished levels of state support,” Mr. Ott told The Washington Times. “Beyond funding, the continuing effects of the internet revolution and the ‘distanced’ aspects of the coronavirus pandemic have fundamentally altered the relationship between libraries and the students and faculty who use them.”

And college libraries aren’t the only ones facing an existential crisis.

In Wisconsin, the Waterford Public Library recently announced it would close on Saturdays and reduce its weekly hours of operation from 58 to 44.

The Fairfax County Public Library in suburban Washington, D.C., citing ongoing staffing issues, cut back hours in August.

In cash-strapped New York, Mayor Eric Adams has proposed cutting $13 million this fiscal year from the city’s $400 million library budget — and another $20 million or more next year.

Institutions in flux

Budget cuts hit both public libraries and school libraries during the pandemic, but the number of K-12 school libraries and librarians has been declining for decades.

Between the 1999-2000 and 2015-16 school years, the latest figures available, the number of school librarians dropped 19% from 53,659 to 43,367, according to a School Library Journal analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data.

Many public libraries that saw patrons turn to remote or virtual services when COVID-19 hit haven’t seen those readers return as the pandemic has receded.

Instead, libraries across the country are increasingly dealing with the needs — and problems — that come with trying to serve throngs of homeless men and women, many of them addicts, who have turned to libraries as a respite from the street.

According to a statement on the American Library Association website, public libraries have a civic duty to care for poor and homeless patrons.

“People experiencing poverty or homelessness constitute a significant portion of users in many libraries today and this population provides libraries with an important opportunity to change lives,” the ALA statement reads. “As the number of poor children, adults, and families in America rise, so does the urgent need for libraries to effectively respond to their needs.”

In the scramble to recapture the kind of attention and crowds that can help justify costs to skeptical public officials, some libraries have embraced controversy, like drag queen story hours and similar unconventional in-person events. Others have focused on unique, hands-on activities — like the rooftop beehives that produce honey at two Philadelphia Free Library branches.

“Libraries are now ‘learning centers’ as fewer and fewer people read books printed on paper,” said Robert Weissberg, a former University of Illinois professor. But the veteran educator wonders if something valuable has been lost in the move away from books and printed material.

Patrons at the busiest libraries can now borrow gardening tools and cooking utensils as easily as they can check out a book, according to the American Library Association.

“As the needs of the community change, so do the services and resources available through our libraries,” ALA President Lessa Kanani’opua Peyalo-Lozada told The Times.

Librarians across the nation are weighing their priorities as they respond to these trends.

Last month, a survey from industry researcher Ithaka S&R asked library directors where they would cut funds if a 10% budget reduction became necessary at their school or institution. More than half (54%) of the 612 librarians who responded said they would cut their budget for printed books and 45% said they would end print journal subscriptions.

In the event of a 10% budget increase, 56% said they would direct extra funds to new or redefined positions and 41% said they would use it to raise staff salaries.

Card-carrying woke

While many communities have embraced the idea of libraries — and librarians — stepping up as service providers for the destitute, others wonder if turning libraries into de facto shelters will only hasten a decline into irrelevancy for patrons worried about safety.

In Washington, D.C., police reported in March that a knife fight broke out between two homeless men at the Petworth Neighborhood Library. One man killed the other, aged 45, in what the Metropolitan Police Department called a “targeted attack.”

That report came after four Colorado public libraries in January closed temporarily to remove unsafe levels of methamphetamine from the air. The meth had entered the buildings’ air ducts from restrooms frequented by homeless drug addicts.

Meanwhile, some right-leaning parental rights groups have called for the closure or defunding of “woke” libraries.

The ALA reported last month that parents challenged books in school libraries and classrooms in record numbers for the second straight year in 2022, with one highly contentious work on LGBTQ identity bearing the brunt of conservatives’ wrath.

The library group found in an annual report that the number of reported challenges to books nearly doubled from the previous record of 729 in 2021 to 1,269 last year — and the number of challenges to unique titles rose 38%, from 1,858 to 2,571 over the same period.

Of the 1,269 challenges reported last year, 51% were for books taught in schools or found in school libraries, according to the ALA. Forty-eight percent were for public libraries and 1% for college and university libraries.

Maia Kobabe’s comic book-style memoir “Gender Queer,” an account of the author’s coming out as nonbinary and queer, led the ALA’s list of most-challenged books for the second year in a row in 2022. Parental rights groups last year made 151 efforts to remove the graphic novel — which includes brightly colored illustrations of minors engaging in gay sexual activity — from library shelves.

In Texas, some parents pushed Llano County commissioners during a contentious April 13 special meeting to close the rural area’s three public libraries after a federal judge ruled they could not remove titles like “Gender Queer” from shelves. A county judge said the libraries would remain open despite the pushback.

Libraries have no right to remain open when they become community centers for porn and drag, said Sheri Few, founder and president of United States Parents Involved in Education.

“‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ should be available, but porn like ‘Gender Queer’ should not be in public libraries,” Ms. Few said in an email. “Libraries now host ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ and focus on social workers and social justice. What on earth happened to good books?”