Near the end of 2023, the New York City government announced that the New York Public Library (NYPL) would begin closing their doors on Sundays. These budget cuts affect the public libraries in Queens and Brooklyn as well. While the NYPL had previously evaded more severe budget cuts earlier in the year, the circumstances have changed. The decision to close libraries on Sunday was part of a broader series of budget cuts by Mayor Eric Adams in response to the strain of the migrant crisis on the city budget, which has cost the city $2 billion. When the budget cuts were announced, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams stated that libraries shouldn’t have been affected by the budget cuts. We at the Editorial Board agree with her sentiment. While there is no denying that budget cuts will have to be made by the city, we believe that the harm of closing libraries on Sunday is not worth the saved costs.
To understand the damage of these library closures to the New York community, we must look at the library’s services and the groups that use them. The NYPL system covers the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx as well as Staten Island. It is the largest public library system in the United States and holds 54 million items including books, videos and ebooks. While checking out a book or DVD may be what most people use the library for, the library also provides many other services that New Yorkers depend on.
A group affected by Sunday library closures is people without internet access. The NYPL provides free internet to people who need to do work at the library. Access to the internet is essential in today’s world and is used for various tasks such as writing essays and online banking. While some readers may think that people could just use the internet at home, that option does not exist for all New Yorkers. As of 2021, 8.1% of households in the city do not have any access to the internet, while 24.5% do not have high-speed internet. Some of the highest rates of no internet access were in the Bronx, which the NYPL serves. The closing of libraries on Sundays now means people without internet access can no longer access one of the few free spaces in the city with reliable internet service. This inequality leaves them at a disadvantage compared to other communities with internet access at home.
Another group largely impacted by the library closures is immigrants. The NYPL provides many vital resources that immigrants can use to ease the transition of moving to America. The NYPL offers materials and resources to help immigrants prepare for citizenship tests. Free English classes are provided for people who want to learn and improve their language skills. If immigrants need legal help, they can access ActionNYC: Immigration Legal Help, provided through the library. Many of these services are offered by the NYPL at the Pasculano Learning Center in Midtown Manhattan at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. However, this building is now closed on Sundays, making it more difficult for people to access these services on the weekend. As a result, the process of adjusting to a new country becomes needlessly more complicated.
A final group affected is job seekers who use NYPL’s Career Services. They provide career coaching and one-on-one resume help sessions to support people preparing to apply for new jobs. Once people are ready to apply to jobs, NYPL provides useful databases to ease the job search. They even hold a career fair, which will take place on May 17 this year. While the three services listed above are a huge undertaking, they still are not all that the NYPL offers. World-renowned research libraries contain historical documents such as a draft of the Declaration of Independence and an original copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio. These libraries grant a space for students to receive guidance and assistance with their homework after school and on the weekends. All these resources are available to anyone with a New York Public Library card.
Some people may disregard the complaints about the library closures on Sundays. They may say it is just one day of the week, and that people can go on the other days. Yet that way of thinking comes from a place of privilege that assumes everyone has equal access to NYPL library services like Wi-Fi. It also ignores the fact that Sunday is one of the only days of the week when students and some workers get the day off. For many people, NYPL’s 92 locations provide these necessary services, and their importance doesn’t change depending on the day of the week. It is unfair to ask the New Yorkers who need these library services the most to give them up, even if it is just for one day a week.
