Library board: ‘Branches must close’

Jackie Nash/Herald

The Elmont Memorial Library board, including Joanne Mazzeo, left, Pat Nicolosi, Maria Gregori and Kathleen Rau, listened to nearly a dozen residents last week, during a special meeting about the library's budget.

Jackie Nash/Herald

Concerned residents waited in line to speak to library board members about their plan to close the library’s two branches.

Jackie Nash/Herald

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Nearly 100 local residents attended a public meeting hosted by the Elmont Memorial Library’s Board of Trustees on March 8, in the hope of persuading board members not to close the facility’s two branches, in Alden Manor and Stewart Manor.

Until the start of the meeting, which was held to address a public outcry over the closures, the branches’ fate was up in the air — trustees had said only days earlier that they had not yet made a decision — but attendees learned within minutes that the board had made a decision.

According to the board presentation, trustees decided that both branches must be closed this year in order to meet their “fiduciary duty to the whole community.”

“As a library board, our fiduciary responsibility is to look at the big picture,” said board president Joanne Mazzeo, “and we turn around and we make long-term goals, and we say, ‘Where is this library going to be 10 years from now? Are more people going to be taking out books?’

“When you don’t have bookshelves out there, what are you going to have?” she continued. “More meeting rooms? Meaning more places for people to plug in their Kindles? We look at the big picture. We’re not just looking so myopic to say, ‘Oh this is what’s good for now,’ because we may not all be on this board next year, or the following year.”

According to the board, the closures have been discussed for several years, but the discussion grew more serious as trustees planned the 2012-13 budget.

Although no date for the suspension of the branches’ operations has been set, they will be required to close by the time their leases expire. Alden Manor’s five-year lease ends July 1, and Stewart Manor’s six-year lease is up on Oct. 31. The two branches have served the district for 68 years.

The main Library, at 700 Hempstead Turnpike in Elmont, will remain open, the board said.

The board’s presentation last week highlighted the reasons for the closures, including current library trends. According to the board, the circulation of books, DVDs and CDs is decreasing nationwide, likely due to the popularity of downloading them.