Over 200 east end residents packed the Orleans Client Service Centre Monday night to add their voices to the rising chorus against library closures. In particular, the crowd wanted to voice their objection to the proposed recommendation to close the Blackburn Hamlet Library.

Innes Ward Coun. Rainer Bloess opened the meeting by presenting members of the Library Board with a petition in support of the Blackburn Hamlet Library containing more than 3,650 signatures.

"That's more signatures than votes I received in the last election," Bloess quipped while pledging his unconditional support for the Blackburn Hamlet branch. "The library is important to their community. It's something they don't want to lose and I am prepared to do whatever it takes to keep it open."

The Blackburn Hamlet Library was targeted for closure in a recent Library Board report along with the Vanier branch and the Ottawa South branch with the goal of saving $1.6 million. The Library Board was directed to find the savings by city council back in February as part of the 2004 budget process.

When the report was made public earlier this month, it immediately drew the ire of library supporters across the city. Councillors' phone lines and e-mail servers lit up instantaneously as irate users decried the recommendations and demanded they be rejected.

In an effort to dampen the firestorm, the city's health, recreation and social services committee unanimously voted to keep the libraries open by a 9-0 margin last Friday. Three other councillors who attended the meeting also indicated their support for the libraries, bringing the total number of councillors against the library closures to 12, the number needed to defeat the recommendations when they come before council on Mar. 24.

Not wanting to take anything for granted, the crowd in attendance at the Orléans Client Service Centre on Monday night made their case to keep the libraries open presenter after presenter.

More than 30 people addressed the Board including eight-year-old Adam Richardson who appealed to the Boards' sense of community in asking that they keep the Blackburn branch open.

"I ask that you reconsider the recommendations. Put yourself in my shoes and ask yourself, do really want to close our library," Richardson queried the Board's trustees.

Other members of the audience argued that the library branch was an essential service and an important cog in the community. Several presenters noted that the library is in walking distance of seven schools and two seniors residences. If it were closed, the next closest branch is a 20-minute bus ride away in Orléans.

Glen Ogilvie Public School Council chair Phil Benson said the library's threatened closure has upset students and staff alike.

"As a council we just can't afford to buy all the books we would like or need. The community library is a very important source of books and information for our students," said Benson.

Bruce Narbaitz, 15, suggested that the library could save money if it stopped the practice of purchasing and lending out videos.

"Watching videos does not promote reading," said Narbaitz.

Arguing that the city needs to spend more money on libraries and library materials not less, former Gloucester Library CEO Arch Campbell took the debate into uncharted territory.

Campbell presented statistics compiled by the Council of Administrators of Large Urban Public Libraries (CALUPL) that indicated the Ottawa Library trailed a number of other libraries in a number of key categories including: expenditures per capita (29th behind even Sudbury, St. Catherines and Thunder Bay); additions per capita (35th); holdings per capita (22nd); and circulation per capita (29th).

"We need better libraries not fewer libraries. I would urge you to aspire to be average," Campbell said with a note of sarcasm.

The Monday night meeting was the second in a series of three public consultation meetings being held this week. The Board will be meeting next Monday to vote on the proposed closures before passing on their recommendation to city council next Wednesday.