San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Library reopenings are overdue
Different position on declining public school enrollment
California’s grand reopening Tuesday allowed its pandemicravaged people to return in droves to places ranging from the fondly missed to the not so much: cafes and cubicles, restaurants and gyms, amusement parks and industrial parks.
But one crucial public space remains more hushed than usual for many communities: the library. That’s a particular problem for neighborhoods that rely on them not just for books and other media but also for access to computers, the internet, public services and job listings.
San Francisco’s library system is one glaring example of the slowness with which this service has emerged from coronavirusinduced closures. While the city’s Main Library began reopening last month and resumed regular service on its upper floors Monday, most of San Francisco’s 27 branch libraries remain closed.
“We have heard June 15 as basically the day when everything is opening up in California,” library advocate Peter Warfield said during a recent meeting of the city’s Library Commission. “What about the library? I believe the library is an essential service and should be open with full service in all of its activities.”
Only two of San Francisco’s branch libraries, Chinatown and Mission Bay, are open for inperson “browse and bounce” service, which allows limited daytime browsing and computer use with reservations. Library officials say they plan to offer limited hours and services at four more branches next week, an additional six in July and all branches by “early fall,” though they cautioned that the reopenings are contingent on staffing and subject to change. About half the city’s branches are currently offering “to go” service, allowing patrons to request and pick up materials and print jobs, with plans to expand curbside offerings in the coming weeks.
But the system has yet to offer a “single minute” of evening service,
Regarding “Californians are losing faith in public schools. They’re not wrong” (Editorial, June 3): The disdainful attitude toward San Francisco educators and our union demonstrated in this piece mirrors that of many articles released by The Chronicle this past year which cast us as adversaries of the students and families that we have worked so hard to support and advocate for when our government has often failed them.
A review of the facts about public school enrollment suggests that the Editorial Board’s conclusions about declining enrollment are premature at best. The Board points out that private schools reopened while the District continued remote education, yet the Chronicle’s own reporting quoted the executive director of the California Association of Private School Organizations as saying that the “state’s private schools have so far reported a cumulative enrollment decline of 6% ...” Similarly, the Editorial Board points out that California reopened to “fewer students than any other state on the mainland,” but they fail to compare CA’s rate of decline (2.6%) to that of the four states that required inperson instruction at the start of the 20202021 school year: Florida (2.3%), Arkansas (1%), Iowa (1%) and Texas (3%). Why did the Board choose to present this as a San Francisco (3.9%) issue when other large urban centers like Boston (4.3%) and New York City (4%) were also impacted? Visit here for a deeper dive on the enrollment data.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Stephanie Grisson said in reference to declining enrollment trends: “There’s not one single answer why. This is very com
Warfield noted, and the closed branches leave most of the city’s residents without convenient access to library computers and internet connections, which could be linking people to jobs and services as the city emerges from the pandemic and the associated economic and employment downturn. “We have a lot of people who are having issues … with unemployment,” Alex Walker, an aide to Assemblyman Phil Ting, told the commissioners Thursday. “I ... have helped hundreds of constituents, and I see the digital divide — people who have internet access at home versus people who do not. Having more public computing is really essential.” plex because every family has their own circumstances.”
Reducing this complex issue to inflammatory talking points does not benefit students and families who are only harmed by divisive narratives seemingly intended to erode trust in educators and public schools.
Overpopulation worry
Regarding “Overpopulation isn’t the problem” ( June 12): Professor Jade S. Sasser dismisses human overpopulation as an issue because data in devel
City Librarian Michael Lambert said Thursday’s loosening of state workplace safety rules could help the system “accelerate restoration of service, including more access to our computers.” But library officials say reopening has been hampered by staffing shortages, with over a fifth of the system’s positions vacant due to attrition or redeployment of library staff to contact tracing and other pandemic services. City libraries were also repurposed over the past year to support some of the children most affected by another service that has been notoriously slow to resume, the public schools.
San Francisco’s shuttered libraries are certainly not alone. Over 80% of the oped countries like the United States shows slowing rates of population growth and because she advocates for greater focus on other social issues such as racial violence and economic inequities demonstrated by the huge discrepancies in greenhouse gas emissions between the richest of humanity and the rest.
Sasser is obviously correct that “stabilizing population” isn’t a “panacea.” There are no panaceas for complex social and environmental issues. However, overpopulation of Earth by homo sapiens is clearly a critically important and too often ignored issue.
The sheer numbers of humanity and our demands on land, water and other nation’s public libraries were closed or offering only curbside services as of last month, according to an American Library Association survey, though more than a third reported plans to reopen this month or next. Libraries in the Bay Area’s suburbs are generally offering only limited hours and services as well.
There is, however, a nearby example that San Francisco should emulate: Oakland, which restored prepandemic hours and services at its main and branch libraries as of June 15. Like the schools, libraries should be leading California’s reopening instead of leaving the public that depends on them behind. nonrenewable resources negatively impact inequality, social conflicts and ultimately the livability of our planet. Interrelated issues in the complex web of global systems cannot be addressed with “either/or” thinking. It’s both overpopulation and other issues impacting each other.
The conversation needing address is not about “stabilization” but how, respecting human dignity, fairness and shared responsibility, the human population on Earth can actually be significantly reduced over 50 to 100 years to assure a longterm just, verdant and sustainable future for humanity and all life on Earth.
Glad to be vaccinated
It’s time to resurrect the “V for victory” hand sign! Only now it means I am vaccinated.
Don’t persecute patriots
Regarding “Media leaving whistleblowers out to dry” (June 17): Thank you, Edward Wasserman, for speaking out in support of those brave individuals such as Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden who have sacrificed so much by exposing embarrassing truths our government has hidden.
Without a free press protected by the First Amendment, democracy will wither. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers, President Joe Biden should immediately end the U.S. government’s persecution of these true patriots.