Nope.
Libraries are becoming obsolete.
If a local municipality wants to make up the cuts, that would be up to the citizens of that municipality.
And that’s the way it should be.
The closer our tax dollars stay to our own communities, the more control we have over them.
The State of New Jersey should be involved in maintaining state roads, state police, state courts, state prisons, motor vehicle administration, and not much else.
Local municipalities should assume local administration with the consent of the citizens.
Period.
The problem isn’t the staffing, but the culture of entitlement. I have worked in the past for the head librarian who is a good friend of mine, but even he is having difficulty turning things around. His longterm goal is to make the library self-sustainable.
The community I live in is losing their last used bookstore, so I have to make a pitch to him to see what can be done about purchasing their remaining stock. I personally think that buying and selling books will fill a niche for him, and he’ll have a better chance of pulling the entire library off of their government funds.
If they’re becoming “obsolete,” how do you explain the fact that every time I go there, they are crowded with people and I have to wait on line to check out my books with other people who also are checking out books?