The Main Library of the Gary Public Library (GPL) at 220 West 5th Avenue in Gary, Indiana stopped lending out books and only accepted returns at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, December 28, 2011, and closed altogether on Monday, January 2, 2012. This was the first step in the process of converting the Main Library into the South Shore Museum & Cultural Center.
A sign posted in the window, photographed by Jonathan Miano for The Times, informed visitors that the Main Library was closed, that the South Shore Museum & Cultural Center would open in the summer of 2012, and directed the reader seeking library services to four open branch libraries. Times Correspondent Lu Ann Franklin reported in an article posted on GaryCommunity.com on Thursday, December 29, 2011 a group formed by Gary resident Robert Buggs in September of 2011 planned to march in protest outside the Main Library on January 2nd (“Main Gary Library closes its doors”).
During the public comment period of the GPL Board meeting on December 13, 2011, Buggs estimated there were seventy irate people who expressed opposition to the GPL Board’s plan. He also claimed the new Library Director, Otis Alexander, felt the same way and for that reason his contract had not been renewed.
Buggs argued, “If the building is not fit to be a library, it’s not fit to be a cultural center and museum…The same money they’re using for the cultural center could be used to maintain it as a library.”
On Thursday, January 26, 2012, Bob Kasarda posted an article on GaryCommunity.com, which is part of The Times Media Group, in which he related that “without the benefit of an attorney” Lovetta Tindal and Gloria Moreno had filed an emergency injunction in federal court “on behalf of the residents of Gary” to “reverse the Gary Library Board’s decision to close and dismantle” the Main Library (“2 seek injunction to reopen Gary’s main library”).
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