As the Boston Public Library slowly emerges from the recession, it continued its process of preparing for the future at a meeting at the Copley Branch on Saturday.
In the past two years library funds have fallen, placing four branches in danger of closing.
The four branches that have been placed in jeopardy are the Lower Mills Branch in Dorchester, the Faneuil Hall Branch in Brighton, the Washington Village Branch in South Boston and the Orient Heights Branch in East Boston.
Yet according to the Boston Public Library’s website, almost one million more books, DVDs and CDs were checked out in fiscal year 2009 than in fiscal year 2006.
The next phase of the library, called the BPL Compass, is a broad review of the larger purpose of the library and the services that it provides to the community, said Boston Public Library Trustee James Carroll.
Phase 1 of Compass began more than a year ago with public outreach meetings in neighborhood branches, an online blog and a staff committee that made suggestions on the library’s proper place in the future.
It concluded with draft principles that the library aspires to follow in the future. These include providing a place for community gathering, preserving the traditional and changing culture of Boston and providing services to researchers, children, teenagers and lifelong learners.
Christine Schonhart, director of Branch Libraries for the BPL, explained the plan for Phase 2 of the strategic planning review.
It includes gathering feedback from Boston residents on the draft principles that were developed from Phase 1.
These will then be presented to the Trustee Committee, which will vote on whether to adopt them and how they should be implemented, Schonhart said.
The goal is to complete the strategic planning process by the end of the calendar year. Implementation of the principles that emerge from Compass will begin in 2011.
On the subject of the four proposed branch closings, Boston Public Library President Amy Ryan said, “Resources have been extended for several more months.”
There will be meetings in each branch to gather feedback from the community.
“If resources can be found, closings will likely be averted,” Ryan said.
The state has threatened to cut funding if BPL closes any neighborhood branch.
Closing branches also deprives neighborhoods of services provided by libraries, such as a community gathering spot or a safe place for children and teenagers to gather after school, many said at the meeting.
“The future by definition is dangerous,” Carroll said. “But it is also what we make of it.”
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