Somerville Public Library staff announced on Aug. 27 that, starting the next day, the library’s Central branch would close in the hours surrounding the dismissal time of nearby Somerville High School. The move comes as a result of unsuccessful talks between library leadership and Mayor Katjana Ballantyne’s office after years of violent behavior from teenagers.
The Central branch, which is located next door to the high school in Gilman Square, is now closed from 2–4 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and from 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m. on Wednesdays, when the school has early dismissal. The schedules of the library’s East and West branches will remain unchanged.
In interviews with the Daily, Central Library staff described some of the incidents that led up to the decision to reduce the hours. Librarians were granted anonymity due to fears of retaliation.
According to the librarians, teenagers have thrown rocks at people leaving the library, gotten into physical altercations inside of the library and thrown firecrackers into the building through the book drop, among other incidents.
In July, librarians had to intervene to stop teenagers from attacking an adult patron as he was leaving the library.
The man “got jumped by a group of about eight to 10 kids outside,” said one librarian. “He came back in and he was bleeding from his face. The teenagers followed him back in, they grabbed books and began throwing them at this man and at staff members.”
Police logs confirm that the man sustained “minor injuries.” This incident forced the library to close for the remainder of the day and “changed the course of how we were expecting reopening to go,” according to the librarian.
The day after the library implemented its modified schedule, Mayor Ballantyne visited the Central branch to hear from staff about their experiences and to ask for solutions that would allow the library to reopen. Some librarians felt that Ballantyne placed too much responsibility on library staff and leadership, rather than proposing solutions that would address the root causes of the teenagers’ behavior.
“We were hoping that the city would be open to kind of seeing that this was a community responsibility and not one for the library,” one librarian said. “And I don’t think she really came at it from that perspective, which was frustrating for a lot of staff.”
In a statement to the Daily, a city spokesperson wrote that “City and Library staff are working closely to implement effective and long-lasting solutions including installing cameras and hiring a social worker to work from the Central Library to help de-escalate issues and connect patrons of all ages with supportive services as needed.”
The Somerville City Council addressed the closures at its meeting on Thursday. Multiple councilors said that they learned about the closure at the same time as the public and expressed frustration at the administration’s lack of transparency.
Neha Singh, director of intergovernmental affairs for the mayor’s office, provided updates to the Council on steps the administration has taken to reopen the library and mitigate the impact of the closure.
Singh declined to provide a specific timeline for the reopening of the library when asked by City Council President Ben Ewen-Campen, but affirmed that the city’s “goal is to reopen the library to regular hours as soon as possible.”
According to Singh, cameras have now been installed in the library, and the city is “in the interviewing process” of hiring for the social worker position mentioned by the city spokesperson.
The mayor’s office is also working to open a new teen center in a city-owned building, but are facing obstacles including identifying an appropriate building and hiring the necessary staff.
Despite his frustration with a “lack of communication” from the mayor’s office in advance of the library closure, City Councilor-at-Large Willie Burnley, Jr. expressed appreciation for the administration’s handling of the issue.
“The administration has gone out of their way to be thoughtful about this crisis, to be considerate about how we engage with public safety in the library,” he said.
The librarians stressed that they are not calling for a police presence in the library.
“A lot of people didn’t want that, both for the safety of people who work here and people who come here,” one librarian said.
“We’ve been hoping that we can kind of look at more positive and kind changes,” another said. “I think it’s going to be something that requires many solutions that work as one to patch up as many areas of this as possible. … We’re calling on the community to be involved with the solutions here, and to help us figure out what the next steps are.”
