“No way to treat a friend indeed”! Can one remember the last time that Friends, staff or patrons were treated by the administration as one would treat a friend? The branches slated for closing will close. (And, I have no doubt that there will be additional branches slated for closing in the next fiscal year.) Allowing the branches to remain open until the spring was nothing but a smokescreen!

Remember: The branches remain open until the stakeholders can decide what they want to happen to the spaces occupied by those branches. But, the public made it clear that it wishes those spaces to be used as branch libraries. So, it would appear that the administration wasn’t listening then, isn’t listening now and probably NEVER will listen. That is to say, the administration ignored the stakeholders’ wish.

Now, anyone who thinks that the administration will not execute ITS plan, is deluded. The mayor has decided that at least 100 city positions should be slashed — and what better place to accomplish this reduction than at the library? Amy Ryan will nod and assure us that we are being led into the 21st century. Does anyone believe this? It took 150 years to create the Boston Public Library — with both its renowned Research Library and it vibrant Branch System; it has taken just over a decade to dismantle this fine institution. We may thank the mayor, the trustees, Bernie Margolis and Amy Ryan for this. What a very sad commentary on the current state of the City of Boston, once known as the “athens of America”.

In closing, I suggest that the original Trustees Report and Walter Muir Whitehill’s centennial history of the Boston Public Library should be required reading for anyone serving in the library administration. But then, of what use are historical documents to those who are leading us into the 21st century?

Bill Grealish

Another question: if you are not in the business of fund raising, and the trustees are not permitted to do so, and the foundation is not doing a good job of it, and fund raising can’t support operational costs, and the city has only so much cash (especially after the fire fighter contract), and the state has cut millions and wants to withhold *more* … why do you expect that some significant cuts won’t be made? And why do you not blame yourself?

I doubt trustees are legally forbidden to raise funds, as they raised tens of millions until 2008. But if indeed it is illegal, I count on our state and local elected officials to change that law and make fundraising mandatory.

While they’re at it, I’d urge them to enforce rules governing public charities so that trustees can no longer use the BPL Foundation for the private benefit of BPL executives. This was done on numerous occasions, according to one current trustee, most recently last year, when trustees unanimously approved a $20,000 housing allowance for Amy Ryan to be paid out of the BPL Foundation’s account. For this reason and others I would not count very much on “people like” me to raise funds for the BPL.