To Whom it May Concern:

The staff of the Camden Free Public Library has just been informed that, due to lack of funding, 17 of its 21 personnel will be laid off in October and two of its three branches closed. If things do not change measurably after that, the library system, itself, will cease to exist after December 31, 2010.

The Camden Free Public Library may not be the biggest library system in America, but we are certainly the most important in terms of usefulness to our community. The city of Camden, New Jersey, is one where much of its population lives beneath the poverty line, with few of the advantages that many other people take for granted. The Camden Free Public Library is, to them, more than a library. It is a community center, a shelter from the heat and cold, a place to study, a source for entertainment, an employment agency, a window on the world. Take this away, and they have even less hope than there existed before, and very little of that.

And this is where we need your help to spread the word of our plight, and to rally public support to our cause. Moral support is good, financial support is better. We cannot let a system that weathered more than one hundred years of existance, through times good and bad, die to to the indifference of a few people in authority.

Please respond to this e-mail addresss, or call Jewell Johnson at (856) 757-7640, or myself at (856) 751-7319.

Yours in service to the community,

Robert Sorrentino Senior Librarian Camden Free Public Library 418 Federal Street Camden, New Jersey 08003 Home: (856) 751-7319 Cell: (856) 261-6692 Work: (856) 342-9789

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