New York City Public Library Action Network Newsletter, Issue #3

Image of leather-bound books on bookshelves, cropped in tight so that it's edge-to-edge books, with a bookshelf ladder in the foreground. Overlaid text says "Libraries are essential"

Zohran!

Like so many of you, we’re overjoyed that New Yorkers overwhelmingly voted for Zohran Mamdani to be the Democratic nominee for mayor.

In addition to all the other things he campaigned on, Zohran is the only candidate in the race to have adopted our demand to commit 0.5% of NYC’s budget to libraries as part of his platform.

But this is just the end of the beginning.

A photo of Zohran Mamdani, smiling casually, but with enough joy to wrinkle the edges of his eyes, wearing his typical simple suit and a blue tie with white dots

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

The general election is in November, and Cuomo still hasn’t learned to take “no” for an answer. While polls predict a Zohran victory over Cuomo, as well as Adams and Sliwa, nothing is guaranteed. And once he’s in office, we’ve got to keep his feet to the fire on library funding as well as all his other promises.

But until he’s sworn in, we’re giving ourselves tentative permission to get a little swept up in the hype. ^_^

The New York Public Library main branch reading room

Photo Credit: Claudio Schwarz, Unsplash

Our Response to the Library Budget for FY26

In other good-but-not-good-enough news, the FY26 City budget increases funding for public libraries by $17 million, including $2 million to expand seven-day service.

This brings funding to 0.45% of the budget – still 0.05% short of our goal.

You can read our full response to the announcement on our website, but in a nutshell, we strongly believe that an additional $56.4 million would ensure that our libraries can remain resilient hubs for communities in the face of more intense weather and shrinking public spaces.

Want to know more about NYC PLAN?

If you want to get involved with NYC PLAN, we’d love to see you at our next meeting! Email info@nycplan.org, and we’ll give you details regarding our meeting dates and locations.