Community Meeting at the Olney Library

If you support Olney, come to this meeting.  Thanks to Barbara Bishop from the Korean Community Development Services Center’s 5th Street Revitalization Project.

COMMUNITY MEETING TO PROTECT/SUPPORTSAVE OUR LIBRARY

WEDNESDAY MAY 13, 2009

6:30 – 7:45pm

SECOND FLOOR OF GREATER OLNEY LIBRARY

5^TH STREET AND TABOR ROAD

On March 27, 2009 Jan Kalaminsky, the head librarian at the Greater Olney Branch of the Free Library, died suddenly. In addition to the loss of a wonderful helpful person our branch is also placed in a precarious position. Because of the city’s budget shortfall there is a hiring freeze currently in place so this position will not be filled during the current budget year. When the new budget is approved and takes effect July 1, 2009, we do not know what will be funded for the libraries.

As a consequence,Currently our library has had to cut back its hours by closing one day a week from 6 to 5 days per week. The branch has scheduled this by alternating the closing day between Fridays and Saturdays in May. Beginning in June all library branches will be closed on Saturdays through the summer as they have been in previous years.

Many good things happen at our branch with LEAP afterschool, PreGED and GED classes, computer access and for the summer we will have the Summer Reading Games and the ‘Science in the Summer’ programs. Grants have been submitted and the branch anticipates having an ESL class in place by fall. In May when new leased computers arrive the number of public computers will jump from 6 to 10. All of these enhancements benefit the neighborhood.

We need to impress upon our elected officials how important the Greater Olney Branch of the Library is to our community. Please join us for an open discussion and strategy session to SAVE OUR LIBRARY. As you saw in the news during the fall when several libraries were scheduled to be closed, Mayor Nutter was swayed by the protests of the people at those libraries. We need to be heard loud and strong that our library is a key resource in our community and needs to be fully staffed with no loss of hours or events. For further information contact bpbishop@koreancenter.org