New Orleans Public Library lays off 90 percent of staff: no other Louisiana library similarly loses workers.(lj news)

A directive by New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin to lay off some 40 percent of the city's work force in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has fallen unusually hard on the New Orleans Public Library (NOPL), which has laid off 181 of about 200 staffers--a devastating 90 percent. The remaining 19 employees must manage damage assessment and reconstruction of the skeletal system and offer shoestring service at two locations.

"The money situation looks very serious from now until the end of the year. Nobody is sure what's going to happen," library director Bill Johnson told LJ. "It's kind of an open-ended situation. It's not like, if we make it to the end of the year it's going to …