Blog posts

In 2019, 73.5% of New York voters elected to change our voting system to ranked choice voting (RCV). What is ranked choice voting and when will it be used? Ranked choice voting allows you to rank up to five candidates, rather than voting for just one. It will be used for the first time in a special election in City Council District 24 on February 2, 2021 and again in a special election in City Council District 31 on February 23, 2021. The first citywide election to use ranked choice voting will be the primary election on June 22, 2021. 

In ranked choice voting, you rank up to five candidates in order of preference - pick your first choice candidate and fill in the oval next to their name under the first column, as shown above. You do not have to rank five. You can still vote for just one candidate, if you prefer. However, by ranking multiple candidates you can still impact who gets elected even if your top choice does not win. You can even suggest a write-in candidate by writing the name of your candidate and ranking them on the write-in line. 

What elections will use ranked choice voting? Special and primary elections for local offices, including mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president, and city council members, will use ranked choice voting starting this year. 

What are the benefits of ranked choice voting? You have more say in who wins, there is less negative campaigning, and cities that use ranked choice voting have elected more diverse and representative candidates, such as more women and women of color. 

•    To learn in depth about how Ranked Choice Voting works, please visit here.
•    For our FAQs on Ranked Choice Voting, please visit here.
•    General information on how to vote is available here.  

To see a guide to the special election in Council District 24, visit here.

On Tuesday, January 19th, QPL President and CEO Dennis M. Walcott hosted a discussion on ranked-choice voting with Rank the Vote NYC, Chhaya CDC, the Chinese American Planning Council, the McSilver Institute, the Northeast Queens NAACP, and the MinKwon Center. Watch the replay on our Facebook page or our YouTube channel.

Dear Queens Public Library Community:

Before this consequential year comes to a close, I wanted to take the time to reflect on the remarkable things Queens Public Library achieved with the efforts and support of so many, even in the face of tremendous challenges and loss brought on by a global pandemic and the national reckoning on Black racism.

We started 2020 strong, gearing up for a first-ever joint campaign with the Brooklyn and New York public libraries and the City to encourage the millions of people who come through our doors to fill out the decennial census. The Caribbean Arts Festival wound down with a joyful closing ceremony at South Hollis in mid-January that drew nearly 400 people who celebrated the talents and contributions of local artists whose work adorned the walls of several of our branches. In another first, we launched a pilot program at Far Rockaway in partnership with the American Heart Association through which customers could safely borrow a blood pressure cuff.

Our work in connecting the people of Queens to vital resources and meeting their needs did not go unnoticed. Our Outreach Team in early January earned a “Beyond Housing Award” from the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness for deploying our mobile libraries and staff to deliver resources directly to families experiencing homelessness. At the end of January, members of our staff honored our Asian communities, braving the rain to march in the Queens Lunar New Year parade and hosting related events and activities across the borough.

In February, the Library turned its attention towards its annual observance of Black History Month with “Go Far, Go Together,” a system-wide program that focused on African-American trailblazers, cultural icons and civic leaders through a variety of programs, performances and displays. We also worked to nurture the skills of a new generation, staging the Library’s second FIRST LEGO League Robotics competition for middle school students, building on the robotics league originally funded by a grant from the Queens Public Library Foundation’s Innovation Fund. The Fund supported other innovative programs that took off this year, including “Mind Boosters for Boomers and Beyond,” designed by East Flushing and Glen Oaks staff to help older adults maintain cognitive health through musical instrument lessons; “Grand Family Fundamentals,” an intergenerational learning program for Mandarin-speaking grandparents with grandchildren K-3, which won a Urban Libraries Council innovation award earlier this month; and “QPL@Night,” aimed at fostering community and learning among people ages 21 and up through culture, entertainment and civic engagement.

As we moved through the winter, we started to hear about a new virus that caused flu-like symptoms but did not appear to pose an immediate a threat to New Yorkers. The advice was to wash our hands frequently, cover our coughs and avoid touching our faces. But by the beginning of March, as more became known about the new virus, the more precautions we took to mitigate its spread. On March 6, we suspended all public programming, and the following week, when it became clear that the health and safety of our staff and the public were at risk, we made the extremely difficult decision to close our physical locations.

Understanding the impact of our shutdown on the 2.3 million people of Queens, we strengthened our resolve to meet our mission, and moved quickly to deliver critical services, programs and resources to the public remotely to ensure that everyone—no matter who they are, where they come from or the challenges of so much uncertainty—would have the chance to realize the promise of their lives.

Within hours of the closing announcement, our technical services team ordered tens of thousands of e-books, e-magazines and other digital content, and our IT team supplied hundreds of laptops and other devices to employees who had to work remotely and brought us WebEx videoconferencing. Our public service, marketing, and programming teams and many other staff pivoted to ensure access to continued learning and growth. Almost overnight, virtual hip-hop DJ spin sessions, storytimes, cooking classes, tech workshops, seminars for job seekers, citizenship classes and more, carried on social media and through videoconferencing and teleconferencing, became part of our new normal, as did virtual reference.

The need to remain connected to our customers took on greater urgency as Queens became the epicenter of the pandemic. To document the effects of the public health crisis on the borough’s residents, Queens Memory launched the COVID-19 Project, collecting and archiving first-person accounts, photographs and records to tell people’s stories about their experiences during a historic time. To ensure an accurate count for the 2020 Census, we converted our outreach campaign from an in-person operation to a mainly online one, ultimately helping to achieve a response rate that surpassed that of the 2010 Census.

Mail-a-Book extended its reach beyond the homebound and older adults, adding more painting lessons and lectures about history and culture, among other offerings. We organized author talks and book clubs, recreation and meditation classes, music and dance performances and much more. We developed programs in Korean, Chinese, Bengali, Spanish and Russian.

Staff from across the system produced over 5,700 online programs between April and October that captivated over 100,000 participants, the ALP offered approximately 100 virtual courses that drew 1,800 adult learners, and NAP delivered ESOL programs for 700 participants this fall.

On top of remote programming, we added Lynda.com, which has thousands of courses to help adults strengthen their professional skills, and Coursera, the massive open online course provider. We made free, one-on-one live tutoring in English and Spanish available through Brainfuse, we moved STACKS, our signature homework help and afterschool enrichment program, into the virtual realm, and we launched online coding classes.

While significantly broadening our digital services, we also were thoughtfully and carefully formulating a plan to gradually reopen our physical locations and to envision the new QPL, prioritizing the health and safety of our staff and the public. In the midst of all of this, the ground shifted once again, tragically laying bare our nation’s twin pandemics.

As you likely recall, it was in late May when a white police officer brutally killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, setting off a national wave of protests against Black racism this country has not seen since the 1960s. His murder, and those of many other Black people, reinforced the need for the Library to ensure equity, fairness and justice for the Black members of our community. We met together in an all-staff forum to resume the process of working towards this goal—building on our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) and implicit bias work—and held a staff rally for racial justice outside Central Library on Juneteenth.

I formed the President’s Council for Racial Equity to take a hard look at systemic racism in our society and its implications for the Library, to understand our role and to encourage continuous dialogue and action within and outside our walls. Since then, the Council has begun to examine QPL’s recruiting, hiring and promotion practices, culture, learning and growth opportunities, governance, programs and services, collections, outreach and marketing strategies in order to devise a plan for lasting change.

We also began a series of Facebook Live conversations with City and State leaders about equity, racism, and other pressing issues surrounding the COVID-19 crisis. The first discussion was with New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Dr. Wayne Riley, president of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, and two weeks later, NYC Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza joined me for a discussion and Q&A about the Department of Education’s plan to reopen the school system. Last week, I spoke with New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Dave Chokshi, about the City’s strategy for the equitable distribution of the coronavirus vaccine. We are looking forward to a 24-hour virtual Black Health and Healing Summit the Library will be co-hosting in February with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association to spotlight health issues affecting African-American communities, including disparities in the U.S. healthcare system and the disproportionate impact of the pandemic.

Here is the Library's holiday schedule for the end of December 2020.

All Queens Public Library locations providing to-go service will be open from 10AM to 1PM on Thursday, December 24.

All QPL locations providing to-go service will be closed on Christmas Day, Friday, December 25, and on Saturday, December 26. QPL's telephone reference and Chat with a Librarian services will also be unavailable.

All Queens Public Library locations providing to-go service will be open from 10AM to 1PM on Thursday, December 31.

All QPL locations providing to-go service will be closed on New Year’s Day, Friday, January 1, 2021, and on Saturday, January 2, 2021. QPL's telephone reference and Chat with a Librarian services will also be unavailable.

Our digital media is available 24/7 from anywhere with an Internet connection — enjoy eBooks, eAudiobooks, music, television shows, Great Courses, and more.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Even though we can't host public events at our branches, Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center will still proudly celebrate Kwanzaa for the 36th straight year!

This year, they invite you to a series of virtual programs starting Saturday, December 19.

You can enjoy craft workshops, live music, dance, spoken-word performances, interesting conversations, and more.

Come celebrate family, community, and the Seven Principles with us!

Funding for these programs has been provided in part by the Library Action Committee of Corona-East Elmhurst, discretionary funds from Council Member Francisco Moya, the Friends of Cambria Heights Library, the Friends of Laurelton Library, the Friends of Pomonok Library, Rory Lancman, and the NYS Education Department's Special Legislative grant from Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry.

Watch these daily Facebook videos explaining each of Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa!

Events Schedule

Saturday Craft Series: Kinara Candle for Kwanzaa
Saturday, December 19, 1PM-2PM
Create a Kinara candle and celebrate the words of Kwanzaa. Materials needed: Scissors, paper plates, markers, paint (in red, black, green, brown, and yellow), two pieces of paper, and glue. Sign up here to join: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/saturday-craft-series-tickets-125523196259

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Annual Kwanzaa Celebration
Saturday, December 19, 6PM-8PM
Please join our guests Atiba Wilson of Songhai Djeli, Langston Hughes Library Emeritus Executive Director Andrew Jackson (Sekou Molefi Baako), hip hop violinist Shayshahn MacPherson, and the Jamel Gaines Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn for a special musical, dance, and spoken-word performance that will kick off this year’s Kwanzaa Celebration!

Watch the replay on Facebook

Watch the replay on YouTube

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Curator's Coffee Chat: The Underappreciated Celebration
Tuesday, December 22, 4PM-5PM
Take a deep dive into the history of Kwanzaa and why you should consider celebrating now and in the future with guest JoAnna Gordon. Register here: www.tinyurl.com/coffeechatlh

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Good for Your Soul: A Cooking Show with Chef Lana Lagomarsini of the Black Chef Movement
Wednesday, December 23, 6PM-7PM
To celebrate Kwanzaa, Chef Lana will show us how to cook West African peanut stew. This stew is flavored with chiles, ginger, and garlic. Chef Lana has been working in NYC kitchens for years and volunteers cooking meals for the Black Chef Movement. Register here: www.tinyurl.com/cookingshowlh

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Saturday Craft Series: African Kwanzaa Necklace
Saturday, December 26, 1PM-2PM
Create a Kwanzaa-inspired necklace with paper plates, markers, long noodles, small paint brushes, round noodles with holes, glue, paint in red, black, and green, and scissors. Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/saturday-craft-series-tickets-125523196259

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Celebrating Kwanzaa: Building the Rhythm in Unity
Saturday, December 26, 7PM-8PM
We’re going to “Go back and fetch it” with a musical and dance ensemble. Join us: https://tinyurl.com/buildinglh

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Celebrating Kwanzaa: Self-Determination: Freedom, the State of Mind
Sunday, December 27, 7PM-8PM
Join artist Sophia Dawson and Black Panther veteran Yasmeen Majid as we explore the progression of Black people in spite of resistance and struggles. Click the link to register to join: https://tinyurl.com/determinationlh

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Celebrating Kwanzaa Panel: We Are in This Together
Monday, December 28, 7PM-8PM
To celebrate the principle Ujima, please join us in a discussion with Aleeia Abraham and Angie K of the BlaQue Resource Network and The Black Chef Movement. Be prepared to be inspired by their work building and supporting community. Click the link to register to join: https://tinyurl.com/panellh

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Celebrating Kwanzaa: Financial Literacy Workshop with Wendy Petties
Tuesday, December 29, 7PM-8PM
Get empowered to change your life by practicing good financial habits. Figure out what motivates you money-wise. After this workshop, you will have a clear understanding of financial concepts to make effective decisions. Join here: https://tinyurl.com/financiallh

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Celebrating Kwanzaa with a Vision Board Workshop
Wednesday, December 30, 7PM-8PM
Reflect on what you've done, and look forward to what you will be, do, and have next. Our vision board party is a purpose-finding, goal-setting event to create a visual of your goals that will inspire you throughout the year. Join here: https://tinyurl.com/visionlh

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Celebrating Kwanzaa: Kwanzaa Wreath Craft
Thursday, December 31, 7PM-8PM
Learn the techniques and materials needed to create natural and decorative wreaths. Kits for this activity can be picked up after December 19 at Cambria Heights Library or Langston Hughes Library. Link to join us: https://tinyurl.com/kcraftlh

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Celebrating Kwanzaa: Living Imani
Friday, January 1, 2021, 7PM-8PM
On the last day of Kwanzaa, the principle we celebrate is Imani (Faith). Monique Fortunê will lead us as we come together as a community to express gratitude for the faith that lifts and sustains us. Join here: https://tinyurl.com/livingimanilh