DEARBORN- Jenan Hachem, 15, walked to the Esper Branch
Library on the east side of the city from her house a few blocks away in order
to get access to a computer on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 14. She was just
one of the many other children who were at the Library on this day. 

However, many of these children, who walked or came on
bikes, might soon need to ask their parents for a ride every time they plan on
going to the library, because the closest one might be as far as five miles
away from where they live.

Due to Mayor Jack O’Reilly’s proposed three-year budget plan
approved by the Dearborn City Council, the possibility of closing down Esper
Branch Library and Bryant Branch Library, two of the three remaining Libraries
in Dearborn, has been put on the table for the 2013 fiscal year.

The news comes right on the heels of the announcement that
Snow Branch Library will be closing its doors by Labor Day weekend.

If Esper and Bryant follow suit, that will leave the city
with only one public Library, the Henry Ford Centennial, located on Michigan
Ave. 

Unlike the Henry Ford Centennial however, Esper is located
in East Dearborn on Warren Ave. and Hartwell. The Esper branch in particular
houses a large multilingual collection, including the largest collection of
Arabic language books, making it convenient for its heavily dominated Middle
Eastern visitors. What makes Esper even more unique is that it’s surrounded by
neighborhoods unlike the other libraries, making it accessible to families and
children from walking distance.  

“I think it’s sad. Where are the children going to go?” said
Debrah Davis, during her visit to Esper Tuesday afternoon. Davis, who lives
just a few blocks away, says she visits the library frequently, but a drive to
the Henry Ford Centennial would be well out of her way.  

Anyone who stops by Esper Branch will realize that the
majority of their visitors are in fact children from the nearby neighborhoods.
Shutting its doors would leave hundreds of children, who attend schools nearby
such as Becker, Lowery and McDonald, without access to an after school library
within a close radius. 

The subject of the potential closing of the branches seemed
to be a sensitive topic to many of the employees working for the Dearborn
Public Library system, but some concerns were still addressed about the recent
decisions regarding the budget cuts, which also included closing down a few
local pools and shutting down the Dearborn Healthcare Center. 

“As a Dearborn resident, I like the idea of the neighborhood
pools, libraries and schools. That’s what made Dearborn so nice,” said an
employee who wished to remain anonymous. “People who are making these decisions
are not living in the same economic conditions as everyone else.” 

Greg Hanrey, another resident and frequent visitor to Esper,
tends to agree. “These libraries are out of our tax dollars,” he stated. “Maybe
the corporations like Ford should be paying for these losses.”

Bryant Branch, despite also being considered to close down,
might not suffer the same fate as Snow and possibly Esper. 

Opened in1924, Bryant was the first Public Library in the
City of Dearborn. The building, located on Michigan Ave and Mason, was donated
to the city by Clara Ford (Henry Ford’s wife) under the stipulation that it
remains a library. The Dearborn Chamber of Commerce leases out the property to
the City of Dearborn and just recently renewed their lease for 10 more years in
2009. 

If the council were to decide to close down Bryant in 2013,
the city would lose the property and be backing out of their lease agreement.
Because of these tricky circumstances with Bryant, it would leave Esper as the
likely candidate for closing over Bryant if one were to be picked over the
other.

Many residents might see this as a major problem; Bryant is
located just a mile away from Henry Ford Centennial, giving the residents of
West Dearborn access to both Libraries close by. Esper on the other hand, is
located right in the heart of East Dearborn, well on the other side of town,
leaving the entire east and south end of the city without a library. 

“Nobody is happy about the financial situation we are in,”
said Maryanne Bartles, the Library Director of Dearborn. “But we are happy that
we still have Henry Ford Centennial no matter what,” she added. 

According to Bartles, the city is facing a $20 million
deficit, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that any final decisions have been
made on closing the two branches.

Because the City Council can only approve budgets of one
fiscal year at a time, this means no final decision about the two branches will
be made until 2013. 

But that hasn’t stopped residents from already speaking out
against the potential closings.

An online petition created by a Dearborn resident titled
“Keep Esper Branch Library Open” has received close to 200 signatures, while
other residents have expressed displeasure with the potential closure through
their local media websites and on Facebook.  

While it’s unclear at this point how much money would be
saved closing down the two remaining Branches, the 2011-2012 budget has cut
down over $200,000 on the library budget this year. The majority of the books
from Snow library will most likely be moved to Henry Ford Centennial. It is
unclear what will happen to the Esper and Bryant collections if they were to
close. 

Another adjustment made to the libraries will be a new
catalog system that Dearborn will partake in at the top of next year. Henry
Ford Centennial will implement Michigan’s eLibrary Catalog, giving residents
access to a wider range of books from over 500 libraries across the state.  

The program is supposed to be cost effective, costing only
$8,000 per year for delivery fees but not including a salary for one full time
employee to manage it. 

Bartles told Dearborn Patch earlier this month that because
this new system will be implemented, she foresees both Esper and Bryant
eventually closing their doors, not having affected the amount of material
available to the city.

But for the many residents who are unable to make the drive
to Henry Ford Centennial Library, that material will be harder than ever to
come by.