THE CITY CHECKS OUT OF PUBLIC HEALTH LIBRARY
Adams administration budget cuts shutter key resource for medical experts that was vital for COVID-19 research
City Health Department experts may find it hard to keep up with the latest scientific research going forward — including on critical topics like pandemic preparedness — as the agency was recently forced to close down its Public Health Library due to budget cuts, the Daily News has learned.
The William Hallock Park Memorial Public Health Library in Long Island City, Queens, has for decades provided department epidemiologists and the public with access to peer-reviewed medical journals, databases, books and other research materials, onsite and electronically as well as via loans. The library is named after renowned bacteriologist William Hallock Park, who was credited with creating vaccines to treat and prevent diphtheria in the early 1900s.
But the department informed staff this summer that it is shuttering the library due to cost-saving directives ordered by Mayor Adams earlier in the year.
“As part of the recent budget cuts, we have to make the very tough decision to close the Public Health Library,” an internal memo obtained by The News reads. “As of July 1, 2023, we will no longer renew journal and database subscriptions.”
The memo adds that “most” of the department’s journal and database subscriptions won’t expire until December, meaning staff can access them until then. After that, access to subscription-based material will end, according to the memo, but officials in the Adams administration said the physical location where the library collections are stored will — at least for now — remain open to department staff.
Still, an epidemiologist who worked for the department during the early days of COVID-19 said subscription-based medical journals were critical for pandemic-related research and expressed worry that the elimination of such resources could affect the agency’s ability to prepare for future public health emergencies.
“It was so important during COVID to see what [researchers in] Israel were doing, to see what [researchers in] the U.K. were doing — the U.S. made policy off of
Israel because they had so much data,” said the epidemiologist, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern of not being able to work with the city again.
“We just went through a giant pandemic where lots of people died. If that’s not enough to justify investing in public health, what is?” the expert added.
Word of the library’s closure comes as the city has seen an uptick in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations this month.
In addition to serving department staff, the physical library space has been open to the public by appointment, a resource mostly used by independent researchers and university students.
However, because of the cost-cutting directive, public access is going away altogether.
An attempt to make an appointment to visit the library returned an email informing The News that, “As of July 2023, the Public Health Library is closed; we are no longer accepting public access appointments.”
A spokeswoman for Adams confirmed public access is no more. She also said that as of July 1 the library was no longer staffed by librarians — but Health Department employees could still visit it and access books and other materials onsite, though they could no longer take them out as loans.
While saying there are currently “no plans” to end access to the physical library for department staff, the spokeswoman did not rule out that could change in the future.
Shari Logan, a spokeswoman for the Health Department, argued
that staff should not be affected by the scaling back of the library because the agency will make its physical collections available in digitized form and offer alternatives to subscription-based journals that “ensure that staff continue to have the information they need to do their work.”
But the alternative resources the department plans to provide do not appear to be commensurate with subscription-based journals, according to a list made available to agency staff this week.
The list, which was shared with The News, shows the department will direct staff to make use of Google Scholar, the Public Library of Science and other free online databases to access research materials. The list also recommends using the New York Academy of Medicine and HighWire Press for accessing interlibrary materials and journal writings — though it notes those resources can come at a cost.
It’s unclear if the department plans to pay for staff to access such materials going forward, or if staff would have to go out of pocket themselves. The Adams spokeswoman said that’s not yet clear, but pointed to the Health Department’s statement that it will “ensure that staff continue to have the information they need to do their work.”
A Health Department researcher who spoke on condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to talk with the press told The News that free databases like Google Scholar are not adequate replacements for subscription-based journals.
“This is going to make it much harder for people to get the information they need to do their job and protect New Yorkers,” the staffer said. “It’s taking a tool out of the hands of the workers.”
Among the most widely used medical trade publications behind paywalls are the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The combined annual subscription cost for those two journals for a single person is nearly $600, their websites show. Annual subscription rates to the journals for institutions like public health agencies range in the thousands of dollars.
Jay Varma, an infectious disease expert who served as former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s top COVID adviser, said that while some research material is publicly available on the web, the closure of the Public Health Library is troubling. “It is just another example of how poorly funded public health is,” Varma said. “Even the largest city health department in the country — one that relies on scientific evidence to shape the policies for over 8 million people — is unable to fund access to the books and journals in which that evidence is published.”
It’s unclear how much money the city is saving by closing the library. Adams’ spokeswoman would not say.
The library closure is part of the 4% spending cut Adams ordered nearly all city agencies, including the Health Department, to enact in April for the 2024 fiscal year, the spokeswoman confirmed.
The April savings initiative was the third budget belt-tightening measure implemented by the mayor since he took office.
The Health Department — which was subject to all three — managed to in total shave more than $140 million in spending over the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years under the savings initiatives, budget documents from Adams’ office show.
During this spring’s budget negotiations with the City Council, Adams drew criticism from leftwing lawmakers for seeking such cuts.
Adams has countered the cuts are necessary to hedge against a ballooning city budget deficit that could grow as large as $7 billion within the next five years.
A murder suspect caught on camera shooting an ex-con romantic rival to death in a Staten Island deli three years ago has been nabbed in South Carolina, cops said Wednesday.
Abdul Olasupo, 26, is charged with murder, manslaughter, attempted murder and reckless endangerment for the July 22, 2020, slaying of 25-year-old Kaseem Scott at the Holland Deli in Arlington.
The two men were in an ongoing argument over a woman when the shooting took place, a police source said.
Olasupo is also accused of nearly killing a woman in the store — an innocent bystander who had the misfortune of getting between Olasupo and Scott.
After a three-year manhunt, members of the NYPD Regional Fugitive Task Force found Olasupo hiding out in South Carolina, cops said.
Task Force members apprehended Olasupo in mid-July, cops said. A South Carolina judge ordered him extradited back to New York earlier this week to face charges.
The killer was in the Holland Deli on Richmond Terrace near Holland Ave. at about 9:30 p.m. when he pulled a gun and shot Scott, surveillance video recovered from the store shows.
The suspect lived down the block from the deli at the time, and his victim lived around the corner, police said.
Surveillance video recovered from the store shows the killer, who’s wearing a surgical mask, brush past a woman in blue as she reaches for a roll of paper towels on top of a refrigerator.
When Scott walks into the killer’s aisle, the gunman swivels around and fires a single shot.
The panicked woman ducks to the ground and the blast breaks the glass refrigerator door, the video shows.
Scott was struck in the chest. He was rushed to Richmond University Medical Center, where he died.
Detectives quickly identified Olasupo as the shooter, but he had already fled the city, cops said.
Scott had just gotten out of prison a week before his death, after he was conditionally released on parole in a gun possession case, cops said.
Scott survived a February 2017 shooting at Touch Gentlemen’s Club on Victory Blvd. but was arrested after police found a gun in his home.
He told police he got the gun for his protection, according to a law enforcement source, and pleaded guilty to a gun possession charge that December in exchange for four years behind bars.
Olasupo was ordered held without bail when he was arraigned in Staten Island Criminal Court Wednesday afternoon.