Back in 2006, well before the present economic meltdown or state budget cuts, Mayor Tom Menino told the Globe editorial board: “We have too many branches.’’ The library’s projected $3.6 million shortfall is only giving fresh urgency to an ongoing reorganization and review.
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At an emotional open meeting of the BPL board of trustees on Tuesday, library president Amy Ryan explained that closings would be based on careful, transparent criteria — including foot traffic, numbers of books and audiovisual material borrowed, age and accessibility of the buildings, parking, and whether another branch is nearby — and not simply yield to the neighborhood with the most political yank.
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America’s first free public library is a cultural jewel on the order of the Boston Symphony Orchestra or the Museum of Fine Arts. Some have argued that it needs a big-money foundation board that can pull in million-dollar donations as the others have. But the BPL is not a private nonprofit institution. It is a department of the city of Boston, just like the schools or police or parks, supported by the taxpayers. Running it is a public trust. To cite one obvious difference with the MFA or the BSO, the library is always free.
This makes calculating the worth of the branches even harder. The very communities with the lowest circulation numbers — Egleston Square, Upham’s Corner, Parker Hill — likely need library services the most. They are the communities least likely to have home computers, easy mobility, or quality schools — or bookstores, for that matter.
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Oliver Wendell Holmes said taxes are what we pay for civilized society. If ever there were an example of this truth, it is the public library. And Holmes should know; he wrote the poem read at the laying of the BPL’s Copley Square cornerstone in 1888. “This palace is the people’s own!’’ he enthused.
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Ultimately, charging user fees for library cards, privatizing the staff, or holding charity telethons won’t save the branches — only the broad public support from taxes will. A society gets what it pays for. And civilization doesn’t come cheap.
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