Link to September 25 Los Angeles Times article, "Library cuts, school-night Xbox launches hurt students".
Excerpt: Lucero Lorenzo, 18, spent many hours of her childhood reading and drawing in the cozy confines of the Cahuenga branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.
This summer, the city sharply reduced library hours and closed all the branches every Monday. But Lorenzo is still keeping to her old routine. This Monday I found her outside the closed library in East Hollywood, huddled with a sketchpad and a notebook beside the front steps' concrete banister.
"This is my refuge," she said quietly. "I've been coming here since I was 8. Just looking at all the books, I fell in love with it."
Sitting under the pepper tree outside while traffic zipped past on Santa Monica Boulevard wasn't quite the same.
"You get used to these things," she said. "It's hard to break from them."
For many L.A. Unified students, it was the first Monday with homework since the new library cuts. And in the course of just under an hour, Lorenzo and I watched as a dozen people, nearly all of them teenagers, arrived at the branch's front steps.
Each would-be library patron stood momentarily perplexed by the large pink Xs the librarians had placed over the now-obsolete schedule affixed to the glass doors.
Standing there, listening to their stories, I could tangibly feel the loss of L.A. brain power.
Related articles:
L.A. Weekly takes Mayor Villaraigosa to Task. (9/19/2010)
Hours reduced at library for 3rd time in 7 months. (7/20/2010)
Don't let the library get washed away. (7/19/2010)
The Middleton Public Library is open more hours than the Los Angeles Central Library. (7/16/2010)
Los Angeles Board of Library Commissioners does Mayor's bidding. (6/12/2010)
Another elective body thinks libraries are dispensable. (5/5/2010)
Cutting library hours: Charlotte Mecklenburg this week, LA next week, who's next? (4/6/2010)
More news under the same headline. (3/24/2010)
Save America's Libraries (The Los Angeles Story). (3/23/2010)
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