The CP Library Project

We've got the raw data behind the closings. Help us make sense of it.

by Isaiah Thompson

free information

When Mayor Michael Nutter announced early this month that 11 libraries would be permanently closed due to a five-year, billion-dollar budget deficit, the city got mad. And then it got busy. Almost the instant the cuts were announced, Friends of the Free Library declared an all-out campaign to save them: Executive director Amy Dougherty pledged to stage 11 protests in 11 weeks, one for each threatened library.

While groups like the Friends fought to maintain the entire library system, residents of neighborhoods that stand to lose their local libraries engaged in a different battle: protecting their own. In Fishtown, at least three rallies were held; West Philly has "Save the Kingsessing Library" banners plastered all over the place.

As the weeks have gone by, different neighborhoods have begun to develop their own distinct strategies. At a recent Fishtown rally, one resident approached me with circulation figures showing that the Fishtown Library has more than doubled its productivity in the past two years. Last week, I was forwarded an e-mail intended for members of the Lower Moyamensing Civic Association, which is looking into what kind of impact the closure of the Fumo Family Branch would have on library access for the handicapped.

What everyone was searching for, it seemed, was a rationale — the criteria by which libraries were selected for closure, and the data to back it up. But that information hasn't been easy to get. The process by which the 11 branches were selected for closure wasn't a public one: In his press conference announcing the cuts, Nutter said that the decision had been made by Siobhan Reardon, president and director of the Philadelphia Free Library. Since then, the mayor and other officials have made vague reference to the criteria used for closing libraries: distance to the nearest library, expandability, use, etc.

Still, little of that nitty-gritty has been given to the public (and it doesn't help that librarians — people whose job it is to inform — have been instructed not to speak to the press, according to several who answered City Paper's calls). Some council members have begun to complain about this.

"Without knowing all the data for each library and what it costs, it's hard for us to reach any conclusion," says Councilman Bill Green, who suggests that Nutter has not, in this case, lived up to his promises of transparent government in making this decision.

"They were afraid of leaks and of people finding out and getting angry," Green says. "But that's what openness and transparency is — it's about allowing a public debate." 

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Since last week, we here at City Paper have been collecting data related to the closures — some provided by library officials, some from elsewhere. But there's a lot of it, and we're not statisticians. So, in order to make the information as useful to the public as possible, we've been publishing not only our own findings, but also the raw data itself, in the form of a public Google Document available online. We call the project "Investigate for Yourself: CP's Collaborative Library Database" — "collaborative" because we invite you, our readers, to contribute. You can access the spreadsheet right here. Feel free to sort through the data, download it onto your home computer, or even edit the database (accurately, please!). If you come across anything interesting, let us know.

In the meantime, here are some of our findings. By and large, the data appears to back up the administration's assertions about how libraries were selected for closure. Still, some things are surprising ...

Circulation and Use

• The cuts tend to apply to libraries with relatively low circulations. The 11 proposed closings, however, don't represent the 11 libraries with the lowest circulation: Five of the bottom 11 are on the chopping block; several — including Kingsessing, Fishtown, Fumo Family, Wadsworth and Eastwick — are closer to the middle of the pack.

• Holmesburg Library is an exception. In the 2008 fiscal year, it circulated more books than Blackwell Regional Library — not too shabby for a mere branch. "I don't know why it was chosen," says former Holmesburg head librarian Catherine Huntzberry. "It's like they took a dart and threw it."

• By comparing current numbers with circulation data from 2005, we were able to see which libraries had increased or decreased in circulation, and by how much. Two of the 11 libraries slated for closure — Charles Durham Branch and Fumo Family Branch — have seen their circulations drop. The other nine libraries have seen their circulations rise over the last three years. Most notable among these is Fishtown Library, which has more than doubled its circulation.

• Seven of the 11 libraries, according to library data, have turnstile counts of less than 75,000 annually; Holmesburg, Kingsessing, Ogontz and Fumo Family were exceptions.

Geographical Distribution

• Three of the libraries slated for closure (Haddington, Fumo Family and Logan) are less than a mile from other branches — relatively close, by city standards. Six more are in the lower half of city libraries in terms of distance from another branch. The exception here again is Holmesburg, which is 1.8 miles from the nearest library. Still, among the dozen most remote libraries, there have been no proposed cuts.

• Looking at a map, the closures appear to be spread fairly evenly in terms of geography. But sort the libraries by council district, and the spread could be seen as political, too. The 11 libraries are spread across eight council districts; no district will take more than two cuts.

Income

• It does not appear to be the case that the city intends to close libraries serving the poorest residents of Philadelphia. In terms of median income (as per data compiled by Friends of the Free Library), the spread appears to be fairly even. Of course, libraries in wealthy neighborhoods aren't closing, either. If anyone is being hit hard, it's people in the middle: Most of the closures are in neighborhoods with median incomes between $24,000 and $36,000.

The same pattern holds true when looking at other indicators of income, like individual and family poverty levels. Of the 11 threatened libraries, Charles Durham is located in the poorest area, and Wadsworth in the wealthiest.

Overall

After the closures were announced, the Free Library sent a document to its branches titled "Branch Selection Criteria." It listed eight criteria, including "closest branch" and "closest rec center," as well as six other potential drawbacks, such as whether a library had a small service population, low after-school attendance, low circulation, a low turnstile count, a small building or an inability to be expanded. 

If a library suffered any of these limitations, it was simply given a check — no specific numbers were provided (Councilman Green is particularly critical of this document: "The administration has given us data that helps justify the decision," he says, "rather than let us look at the raw data").

There is no doubt, looking at this chart, that a library with a high number of drawbacks is at high risk of closure: Seven of 11 libraries slated to close have four or more "checks" against them. But Holmesburg library has no checks against it. And only two libraries have been spared despite having four or more checks — Kensington and Cobbs Creek. The Kensington Branch is near the slated-to-close Fishtown Library. Cobbs Creek Library, it's perhaps worth noting, is where Mayor Nutter "grew up," as he said when he announced the closures.

These statistics are by no means exhaustive, and the figures obtained by City Paper so far fail to consider important factors such as computer use, attendance of on-site adult literacy programs and other noncirculation uses of the libraries.

But the most striking absence from the figures we've seen is operational cost. It's cost, after all, that's at the root of the proposed closures.

Councilman Green has given the administration a seven-page list of his own questions, including a request for detailed information about the cost of operating each branch:

"If it's not measured, it's not managed ... these programs could be the best bang for our buck the city is getting."

Recently, the closed doors behind which the library cuts were decided have begun to open. The administration, Green says, has begun to turn over more information. Dougherty, of Friends of the Free Library, says her organization will be working with the mayor in coming weeks — although those meetings, too, will be closed to the public.

In the meantime, as information comes in, we'll publish it.

(isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net)