Queens Library at Arverne Celebrates Re-Opening, Following Superstorm Sandy Re-Build » Public Libraries Online

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Queens Library at Arverne Celebrates Re-Opening, Following Superstorm Sandy Re-Build

by by Thomas W. Galante, President and CEO, Queens Library on April 22, 2014

On April 18, Queens Library celebrated the
grand re-opening of its library in Arverne, one of four on the
beachfront peninsula known as “the Rockaways.” Members of the community
and elected officials crowded the rebuilt library to marvel at how
wonderful it looked and to trade memories about the dark weeks following
Superstorm Sandy. Queens Library at Arverne was one of four Queens
Libraries devastated by the October 2012 hurricane. Storm surge 4 feet
high ruined the walls, furniture, computers and all electrical wiring.
The community residents fared much worse. Economically challenged before
the storm, they depended on their library for after school enrichment,
computer access, job skills training, so much more.

The Arverne library – after the hurricane. Read more...

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Why libraries deserve to be hip - Salon.com

Enlarge (Credit: track5 via iStock)

This
afternoon, I’m picking up my younger daughter from school and I’m taking
her someplace special. It’s a place she and I can look at works by
local artists, where we can read quietly together, where we almost
always run into friends. It’s one of best places in the world. You’ve
probably got something like it where you live too. It’s called the library.



Libraries
are not terribly fashionable. You’d think they would be. In a world in
which educated, enlightened, planet-hugging types are all up in that
composting and upcycling and no impact lifestyle, these wonderful places
where you can just borrow stuff and then bring it back so someone else
can enjoy it somehow languish. Last year was the first year in several
that New York City libraries didn’t face any budget cuts – though branches shut after Hurricane Sandy remain unrestored. Libraries in Detroit have been shuttered in the city’s economic crisis. In the U.K., libraries face closures as the number of people using them plummets. Read more....

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Many Return to School in a Landscape Altered by Hurricane Sandy | School Library Journal

Many Return to School in a Landscape Altered by Hurricane Sandy | School Library Journal

By Sarah Bayliss  November 6, 2012

Messages requesting donations posted on the doors of John Jay High School in Brooklyn, currently an evacuation shelter for Hurricane Sandy victims.

School officials in New York and New Jersey grappled with how to get students and staff back to classrooms on Monday after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. The storm left 57 New York City schools too structurally damaged to receive students, and eight are still in use as evacuation centers. In New Jersey, some schools were open, but a full picture of the extent of the damage was still hard to come by due to power outages, said Amy Rominiecki, president-elect of the New Jersey Association of School Librarians (NJASL).
Read more...

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