BPL Trustees Meeting and Community Meetings Scheduled

EAST BOSTON MTG: Saturday, March 27, at Harborside Community Center, 10:00-11:30am

All meetings open to the public; one to be held online

BOSTON – March 19, 2010 – The next meeting of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library will be held at 3pm on Wednesday, March 24, in Rabb Lecture Hall at the Central Library in Copley Square. This meeting is open to the public; community members are encouraged to attend. The Trustees will not vote on any branch hours reduction plan or branch consolidation plan at the March 24 meeting. The meeting will include further discussion of a vision for the Boston Public Library as well as a review of the proposed FY11 budget for the Central Library and for administration and operations. Also on the agenda are a review of public participation and a review of measures.

The draft measures to be discussed were presented by BPL President Amy E. Ryan at the March 9 meeting of the Trustees. These measures include: public use measures (books and audiovisual materials borrowed, foot traffic, computer sessions, public wireless internet sessions), operational measures (accessibility, technology expansion, meeting room, parking lot with or adjacent to library), geographical measures (proximity to large library, proximity to other libraries), qualitative information, and other important considerations (partnerships and community assets, public feedback, program attendance, number of public programs, capital projects, information and data from other urban library systems). An additional measure that captures proximity to public transportation has been added based on recent community feedback.

As part of the ongoing public process, four community meetings and one online meeting will be held in March and April in order to collect feedback on library services. The dates, times, and locations of these meetings are:


1. Saturday, March 27, at Harborside Community Center, 10:00-11:30am
312 Border Street in East Boston
2. Saturday, April 3, at Codman Square Branch Library, 2:00-3:30pm
690 Washington Street in Dorchester
3. Monday, April 5, at Honan-Allston Branch Library, 6:00-7:30pm
300 North Harvard Street in Allston
4. Tuesday, April 6, at Curley Middle School, 6:00-7:30pm
493 Centre Street in Jamaica Plain
5. Wednesday, April 7, at www.bpl.org (online moderated chat) 6:00-7:30pm.

Additional meetings of the Board of Trustees will also occur in April and May. Dates for those meetings are forthcoming.

Key information about the Boston Public Library budget is available online at www.bpl.org/budget, including President Ryan’s complete remarks and Chief Financial Officer Sean Nelson’s financial presentation from the March 9 meeting of the Trustees. Documents from the February 17 meeting of the Trustees are also online. From www.bpl.org/budget, community members can send recommendations and other feedback. The Library is also collecting comments via email at feedback@bpl.org and via US Post to 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116.

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About the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY:
For more than 160 years, the Boston Public Library has pioneered public library service in America. Established in 1848, the Boston Public Library was the first publicly supported municipal library in America, the first public library to lend books, the first to have a branch library, and the first to have a children’s room. Today, the Boston Public Library boasts a Central Library, 26 neighborhood branches, free wireless internet access, two unique restaurants, and a robust web site. Each year, the Boston Public Library hosts nearly 12,000 programs, answers more than one million reference questions, and serves millions of people. All of its programs and exhibits are free and open to the public. At the Boston Public Library, books are just the beginning.

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budget: www.bpl.org/budget
online calendar: www.bpl.org/news/calendar.htm
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