A week after New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said he would close the Casa da Saudade library in response to $10.2 million in budget cuts for the 2025-2026 fiscal year, he announced that the library branch will remain open but with reduced hours.
According to the mayor’s press release, Casa da Saudade’s new operating hours are now: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12 to 8 p.m. and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The city plans to change the operating hours of other branch libraries to offset costs.
The City Council cut $114,215 previously earmarked for the library, according to the mayor.
The Casa da Saudade library was established in 1971 and has a collection of around 34,000 texts, newspaper and magazine subscriptions and other materials originally acquired to assist Portuguese fishermen and their families. It is one of the country’s only Portuguese-language public libraries according to Olivia Melo, the city of New Bedford’s library director. Many of the books and materials within the library’s collection are even out of print in Portugal, she said.
For Melo, the last week and a half has been emotionally draining. She is a Portuguese-speaking immigrant from the Azores and learned English at Casa da Saudade.
“I discovered that library at the age of 12,” Melo said. “That’s where I learned to read English. And that’s where I decided one day I would be a librarian, because the librarians there showed me the magic of libraries. So there’s a deep personal attachment that I have to that branch and what it’s meant to the community.”
Melo said that the community rallied to the threat of its closure.
“There’s quite a few people out there that think nobody wants libraries. ‘Why do people need libraries anymore?’” Melo said. “Everything is available online, or everybody’s got their information on their phone now. But what this has shown is how much the community sees the library as a community gathering place, as a place that is an identification source for them in the city.”
Melo doesn’t see the reduction in hours as a long-term solution to the library system’s budget. She foresees the possibility of further cuts next year and said that every year’s budget is a “balancing act.”
