The passions run high as libraries’ fate debated
By Andrew Ryan – Globe Staff / March 10, 2010

Sell a page from the 556-year-old Gutenberg Bible, one woman suggested. Charge a modest fee for library cards, said another, waving a $10 bill.

One man said that he was a prison librarian while serving time in Walpole and that closing any library branches would be far worse than any of his crimes.

“I may have robbed a bank, but I have never burned a book,’’ said the man, John McGrath. “And that’s what you do when you close a library branch, because they are never going to reopen.’’

Passions ran high yesterday as nearly 400 people packed a lecture hall at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square for an emotional and at times raucous public meeting about the fate of the constellation of library branches that dot the city.

When City Council President Michael P. Ross stepped to the microphone at one point, the crowd roared, and people shouted, “The public goes first,’’ and “Let the people speak.’’

Ross relented, and a constant stream of people took turns, many denouncing a proposal by library officials to close up to 10 neighborhood branches to consolidate resources and change how they provide services in the face of a $3.6 million budget shortfall.