Cherrydale Branch Library

Serving North Arlington since 1922

E-mail to Cherrydale Library Users, February 23, 2009

TO: Cherrydale Library District Residents
FROM: Greg Embree
SUBJECT: Protecting Cherrydale Library

As everyone knows, the County Manager’s proposed budget envisions reducing Cherrydale
Library’s operation from six days per week to three. (The latest information on the fate
of Cherrydale Library can always be found at http://home.comcast.net/~suza1/library.htm .)

Those of you who value Cherrydale Library and who wish to express their opposition to this
proposed cutback can best leverage their views via a regular letter to each member of the
County Board at :

2100 Clarendon Blvd., Suite 300
Arlington, VA 22201

The members of the County Board are

• Barbara Favola (Chairman)

• Jay Fisette (Vice Chairman)

• Mary Hynes

• Walter Tejada

• Chris Zimmerman

Phoning is a strong alternative. The number to call is 703-228-3130.

E-mailing the County Board at countyboard@ arlingtonva.us is another option. In abundant
volume, e-mails can sway the County’s decision makers. Individual members of the County
Board can be reached at bfavola@arlingtonva.us (Ms. Favola), jfisette@arlingtonva.us (Mr. Fisette),
mhynes@arlingtonva.us (Ms. Hynes), wtejada@arlingtonva.us (Mr. Tejada), and czimmerman@arlingtonva.us
(Mr. Zimmerman).

Feel free to personalize your remarks, emphasizing how you and your family use and value Cherrydale
Library, with examples from your daily, weekly, or monthly routine. If you’d like to draw on some
additional points to make in your letter, phone call, or e-mail, here are some you might consider
adding, in your own words:

• The savings gained by reducing the operation of Cherrydale Library from six days per week to
  three days would average out to about 73 cents per year for every man, woman,and child in Arlington.

• The County’s 3.8-percent budget shortfall for FY2010 does not warrant paring Cherrydale Library’s
  hours of operation by 50 percent.

• Cherrydale Library serves a larger portion of Arlington County than any of the other six branch
  libraries. Those of us living north of Lee Highway and east of Glebe Road value Cherrydale Library
  and use it.

• Reducing the hours of our neighborhood libraries or closing them outright flies in the face of
  President Obama’s call in his address to Congress on February 24 to promote learning and strengthen
  our country’s educational infrastructure.

• Cherrydale Library offers an intimate, relaxed, and accessible place where children and adults
  can experience the pleasure of reading. Students at H-B Woodlawn use the library as an extension of
  their school.

• Reducing Cherrydale Library’s hours would undermine its ability to provide critically important
  services to our community – preschool programs, computer and Internet access, reference materials, the
  Summer Library Reading program, books and magazines, and most importantly, a place where neighbors can
  meet and students can study or relax after school. Reducing the library’s hours is a short-sighted answer
  to what everyone hopes will be a short-term budget problem.

• In fact, usage of Cherrydale Library has been rising since our national economic downturn began. The
  Library Department projects that the number of visitors and the number of items checked out will have
  risen 10 percent and 8 percent, respectively, between July 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009, showing how valuable
  libraries become in times of economic hardship.

• In that connection, no public library in Virginia (or in the United States as a whole*), closed during
  the Great Depression, according to what the president of the Virginia Historical Society, Dr, Charles Bryan,
  reported to Cherrydale citizens in 1998, the previous time the County Board considered closing Cherrydale Library.
  Cherrydale Library itself survived that Depression, plus the recessions of 1974, 1981, and 1991. It has served
  our neighborhood well at its present location for over 47 years.

_____________________
This site is maintained by Citizens for Cherrydale Library, a group of citizen volunteers seeking since 1998 to promote and preserve our most important neighborhood institution. Contact us at suza1@comcast.net with any questions or comments.