New York City Libraries Receive Largest Funding Boost Ever

Hyperallergic reports that the NYC Council voted and approved the fiscal year 2016 budget this week, which includes a $39 million-dollar boost for NYC libraries. More:

In a deal on the fiscal year 2016 budget struck late Monday night, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced an extra $39 million for the city’s libraries. The additional funding will allow for a restoration of six-day service at all branches across the city’s three library systems (Brooklyn, New York, and Queens) and create some 500 new jobs, Library Journal reported.

“This is a long time coming, and a very hard earned victory for libraries in New York City,” said City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer, whom the Journal describes as “one of City Hall’s most tireless advocates for libraries.”

In his original FY2016 budget proposal, Mayor de Blasio allocated only $313 million to the city’s libraries — $10 million less than last year and a $65 million drop from 2008 funding levels. In response, Van Bramer and many other library advocates rallied public support behind a request for an additional $65 million. The newly announced compromise provides for just a little over half of that ($39 million) in operating funds, but de Blasio’s office has also agreed to a $300 million 10-year capital budget for the libraries — amounting to “the largest ever combined increase in operating and capital funding for public libraries,” according to NYPL President Anthony Marx. (Though advocates plan to continue campaigning for $1.4 billion in capital funding over 10 years.) [...]

Continue at Hyperallergic.