In a time when more than 860,000 New Yorkers are out of work, the library is often a helpful and affordable resource for finding a job. But with proposed funding cuts, many public libraries could lose the ability to provide that service. As our Matt Hunter tells us, libraries are banning together to make sure that doesn't happen.

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"I do job searches every day there," said McCray, a 20-year-old Glens Falls resident. "I use the internet, it's very reliable source to find jobs, especially in an area like this."

"I go in there to go on the computer to search for jobs too," 23-year-old Kump said.

With unemployment still hovering below 10 percent in New York, the state's libraries are seeing more and more people make use of their computers and other job search tools.

"Libraries, traditionally, have seen increases in usage during recessions and downturns in the economy," Crandall Public Library Director Christine McDonald said. "This time we're seeing a huge, huge increase and this is statewide."

In the past year, the door count at the Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls has jumped 115 percent and internet use is up 164 percent.

During a hectic time when the library can use all the financial help it can get, the library's director received quite a blow when she heard Governor Paterson is proposing to cut public library funding by 2.7 percent, the fifth cut in two years.

"We would've expected the cuts to come to us first if we had gotten increases every year," McDonald said. "But our last increases were in 1992 and in 2006 and 2007, so we were somewhat surprised that this had happened."

With the cuts, McDonald says she'd be unable to hire a new computer instructor, a position she's wanted to fill for some time.

She and more than a thousand others from the New York Library Association are scheduled to head to the Capitol on Tuesday, hoping to catch the ears of lawmakers and keep the funding they and their patrons desperately rely on.

"People really need us and they need us more so now, when the economy is experiencing a recession," McDonald said.

"The library is the key to learning," Kump said. "It's a cornerstone in America, why would they cut it?"

If approved, it would be the fifth funding cut since the 2007-2008 fiscal year, when library funding was at $102.8 million. Under the current proposal, the budget drops to $84.5 million.