On August 31, 2024, Schenectady County Public Library patrons will lose access to thousands of books, which could previously be reserved through the online catalog and picked up at their local branch.

This is the result of a February 29 vote to withdraw from Joint Automation, a regional library catalog shared with 48  member libraries. This decision was made by the SCPL Board of Trustees, with support of  the SCPL Library Director and the Schenectady County Manager, but with no public input.

Due to the serious loss for library patrons, we beg the Trustees, the Director and the County Manager to reverse this drastic decision.

Furthermore, we request an open meeting at the Central Library where the public can hear from library administration and Board trustees as to the justification for this decision, the process that was undertaken to consider the change, and an explanation of what the benefits are to our system.