“With the closing of pools, recreation centers and other programs that enhance the quality of life here, we have already taken too many assets away from our neighborhoods,” said Shields.
“We cannot stand by while we watch yet another community asset disappear from Pittsburgh’s neighborhood landscape. As the stewards of citizens’ assets, we have an obligation to preserve them.”
Read more about this exciting development here. Thanks, Doug!
“Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn’t rip off. “
~Barbara Kingsolver
More info on the budget shortfall and a link to the library’s report is in this Tribune article here.
“ At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better.”
– President Barack Obama
This Saturday, Puppets for Pages will visit the oldest library set to be closed, the West End Library. Our featured local Pittsburgh puppeteer is the amazing and talented Joann Kielar who will perform at 1pm.
We can’t wait to see what artwork and puppets the kids of the West End make this time. Hope to see you there! Keep checking back for news updates and event recaps.
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
–Groucho Marx
Couldn’t resist posting a photo of Cinnamon, our youngest Puppets for Pages team member, happily playing in Flora’s home library.
“When I step into the library, I cannot understand why I ever step out of it.”
— Marie de Sevigne
Hazelwood’s incredible children’s librarian, Ellen, has prepared the following overview of the history of and importance of the Hazelwood library. Thanks, Ellen!
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Hazelwood has served Hazelwood and its surrounding neighborhoods for over 100 years. In April 2004, the library relocated to its new location at 4901 Second Avenue. In the heart of the Hazelwood business district, the library is easily accessible on foot as well as by public transportation. Since relocating the library’s circulation and customer visits have demonstrated yearly increases, as high as 34 percent. When the library’s hours were increased in 2007 to a five-day-a-week schedule, there was a concomitant spike in usage. Nearly 60,000 customers visited the library in 2008, demonstrating a 14 percent increase compared with 2007.
The Hazelwood Carnegie Library provides free quality programs to approximately 5,000 children and teens. Innovative programs such as KinderPrep, a system wide kindergarten preparatory program has been presented to more than 550 preschool children. We can proudly state that children and teen program attendance at Hazelwood competes with attendance figures at some of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s larger branches.
Many of the children that visit the library neither own nor have access to a personal computer in order to complete homework assignments. In addition, many companies now require that job-applications are completed on-line. Without access to a computer, already dismal unemployment rates could decline even further.
As a community anchor, the library maintains integral relationships with the YMCA summer programs, Head Start and community public and parochial schools. The Hazelwood library’s innovative “It’s Real” program for teen mothers and their children is held in two Pittsburgh high schools and received the 2009 Pennsylvania Library Association Best Practice Award in the category of “Programs for ‘At Risk’ or Underserved Children and Families.”
The Library is already enmeshed in the history of Hazelwood. Our hope is to remain a part of the future of this diverse and impressively resilient community.
Personal testimonials:
– If you close our library you are asking us to be on the street because this is our second home.
– If Hazelwood Library closes I think the kids will suffer the most. There is nothing in Hazelwood for kids to do and because of this they are always at the library instead of on the streets getting into trouble.
– There is no convenient way to another branch which leaves many, mostly children, stranded. There are very few free community programs offered in the area. The library provides an option, a choice, and an alternative to the street.
The Library is everything to Hazelwood.
For now we ask your continued help and the help of other library users, friends and neighbors, to keep our community libraries on the front burner. Demonstrate against the closure of branch libraries. Contact your City Councilperson, State Senator and Representative, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Board of Directors, the Allegheny County Regional Asset Board, the media, and the list goes on.
“There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the free public library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”
–Andrew Carnegie
The Puppets for Pages team attended a wonderful benefit event at Lawrenceville’s Belvedere’s last night: 3 Rivers, 6 Rings, 19 Libraries, and no less. The Cyberpunk Apocalypse, Open Thread, Encyclopedia Destructica, and other members of the literary community came out in support of our Libraries. There were readings by Karen Lillis, Adam Atkinson, Sara Labuff, Todd Faltin,Alyna Frankenberry, and Sally Mao, a dance party featuring DJ Attilla the Hunk, Jonbro, and Mary Mack; and even a phone-call station with a list of politician’s phone numbers to call. Congrats to the organizers for a great event.
If you are organizing another library event, please feel free to email florashepherd@gmail.com so we can attend and post it on the site!
” Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them.”
–Arnold Lobel
Read about the CMU study and another overview of the library situation in the Post Gazette here.
“The library has faced tough times before, but it never closed a branch. Now, it appears it has no choice.”
Continue reading by clicking here.
“If they close the library, they better build more jails,” said Sam Strati, 79, a member of the Hazelwood Initiative, a local community group. “Kids down here have no other place to go.”
Read the rest of Adam Brandolph’s excellent Pittsburgh Tribune article covering Saturday’s Hazelwood events by clicking here.
West End Preview
“What is more important in a library than anything else – than everything else – is the fact that it exists. “ - Archibald MacLeish
Puppets for Pages had another fun-filled event yesterday at the West End. A more detailed post is in the works. Until then, enjoy this photo of a cowgirl-Katrina-puppet participating in the rally outside the sunny, beautiful West End library.