A new law hopes to make it easier for public libraries in disadvantaged communities to use state aid for building projects.

New York state Assemblymember Angelo Santabarbara hopes it will in turn allow more libraries in those communities to keep their doors open. The legislation ups the percentage of a project that can be covered by state aid from to 75 to 90.

“It changes that, it ensures they can received this up to 90%, so they only have to come up with 10%, it was much much more in the past so unfortunately they were left out,”

It also eliminates a sunset clause in existing state law that left libraries at risk of leaving that funding on the table if projects weren’t completed on time.

“It was preventing libraries from taking on these projects because if they don’t get it done on time because, unfortunately, they’re out on the funding” he said.

AnnaLee Dragon, executivedirector of the New York Library Association, told Spectrum News 1 the role of libraries are shifting, and in many lower income areas they are becoming more like community centers.

“There are fewer and fewer places where people can gather publicly without the expectation of spending money as we all deal with inflation and cost of living increases,” she said.

She explained that the bill could provide relief to facilities struggling to meet increasing demand in while navigating financial constraints of their own.

“Those communities having those issues are often high need districts and those communities need them even more than anywhere else would need its library,” she said.

With the state aid bill passed, Santabarbara's attention will turn next session to passing a bill that would prohibit publishers from limiting the number of copies of an e-book that are available at a public library.

“They have to renew every so often and they’re charged much much more, and the concern the libraries brought to me is that they are spending a lot of the funding they recieve to renew these ebook licenses,” he said.