A management review team charged by Mayor Bret Schundler with reforming the Jersey City (N.J.) Free Public Library System is reported to have recommended that the library turn over its management to Library Systems and Services, Incorporated. The proposal follows a visit by the team last month to Riverside County, California, where LSSI runs the 25-branch library system.
Assistant Director Rose Marie Rudy told American Libraries that the team's report presented various options but recommended privatization of the system's management, technical services, maintenance, and other operations. She reported that the ongoing review process had not only stalled the system's automation plans but had angered library employees, who have been working without a contract for two years.
Staff members voiced their objections to the proposal at a June 10 city council meeting, said Rudy, who added that the union is likely to take legal action if the privatization plan goes through. "This is a cause," she vowed. "Nobody's going to take over the public library."
Posted June 15, 1998.