Kim Cooper of the estimable 1947Project has started an organization, with her peers, to speak up for the borrowers among us, people for whom the public library is a necessary institution. And just in time for National Library week, which started on Sunday.

Yesterday Cooper announced the launch of a new website devoted to challenging the new $1 borrow fee planned for July and other measures:

I am part of a grassroots collective of passionate library users who are deeply disturbed by the proposed $1-per-book inter-branch loan fee that will be charged beginning July 1st.

We have launched a website to raise awareness of this issue and the fact that there is a virtual moratorium on the Library buying new books and periodicals.

We believe that if the people who use the Library make their feelings known to the Mayor, Library Commissioners and City Librarian that an alternate solution will be found, one which will generate more money for the Library without putting the burden for fundraising on the people who can least afford it.

Anna Sklar, who wrote to Chicken Corner that she once led a Librarians' Guild fight against book-budget cuts, had some insight:

[The] decision to charge for holds and stop buying books is appalling. Many years ago I led a Librarians Guild successful effort to halt Library Commission plan to cut book budget. The current draconian decision must have come from council and mayor who control the budget.

Surely we should immediately start a campaign to petition mayor and council to halt library decision. If the environmentalists can halt sewage pollution, readers can [save the libraries].

Many big money organizations found the funds to build the new library as well as many of the branches. Buildings without books are bodies without souls. With all the branch Friends of the Library (with at least 69 branches) and Friends of the Central Library, I say it's time to get organized.

Unless, that is, we want our librarians to end up dumpster-diving for books at the branches with lower-income users, the library computers used as patrons' ordering stations for Amazon.

It's not just books the library can't buy but educational tools of all sorts. The following was posted by Rosie Betanzos on a neighborhood list yesterday:

Edendale Library’s Young Adult librarian requests donations of board games, card games or any other similar items. She is building a collection for the Summer Teen program. When you do your spring cleaning this year, please check your closests and gather the unused games for the library. Drop them off to the reference desk and say they are for Shellie’s teen program.

Recently, Rosie pointed out that library allocations are tied to the numbers of books checked out (though late fees go to the city general fund, not the library), much the way public schools get money based on kids' attendance. I never knew that. I always felt a little guilty when I took out more books than I would have time to read. No more.