Los Angeles Public Library open Mondays, thanks to Measure L

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The Los Angeles Public Library is open again on Mondays.

This is the first week that the city’s libraries were open on Monday since August 2010, when budget cutbacks forced a cutback in hours. Now all 73 libraries in the Los Angeles public library system will be open again on Mondays, for the forseeable future.

That future is brighter for libraries because of ballot Measure L, which was passed by Los Angeles voters in March. Measure L set aside funds for the library from the city budget; while some argued that this set a poor precedence for city governance, voters decided that designating money be made available to libraries was a good idea. The library had been hard hit In past budget negotiations.

‘I don’t relish the fact that we’ve had to make as much in the way of cuts as we have,’ Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said at a news conference at the downtown library Monday.

The mayor added, ‘It was a library that really opened up the world for me.’

To accommodate the return of Monday hours, some branch libraries will be closed Friday mornings. Yet some libraries will be open later on Tuesdays and Thursdays, until 8 p.m. Check the library’s website for your branch’s current hours.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg