Newark Public Library has been beset by debilitating furloughs, layoffs, and budget cuts, but two passionate city residents are determined to preserve the legacy of an institution that has long nurtured children and adults alike.

Claudine Royal, 59, and her daughter, Ayo Peterson, 38, helped form Preserve Newark Libraries, a grassroots organization whose aim is "to find needed money and to engage the citizens of Newark," according to the organization's website.

Royal is the chairwoman of the group, which was formerly known as Save Newark Libraries. Peterson designed the group’s website and performs other advocacy building activities. The duo are the two most active members of the group.

"You can't have a great city if you don't have a library system," said Peterson, who takes her three children to the library a couple of times a month to check out books and DVDs.

The group has been busy with attending the library's Board of Trustees meetings, sending out news alerts on the library system, signing up people to get library cards, organizing future fundraisers, and helping organize an upcoming poster campaign that will display city officials showing off their favorite book, according to Royal. The group has also been especially active in letting city council members know about the dire straits the library has been experiencing, she said.

The group started when news came down last year that the library would be experiencing furloughs, reduced hours, cuts to the new book fund, layoffs and the shuttering of two branches, according to a statement on the library's website from Timothy Crist, a library trustee.

Last year's furloughs forced workers to go on unpaid leave for two days per week from August through December.

The library's financial woes occurred last year when the city took out about $2.45 million or 18 percent from the $13.5 million budget, which is made up of mostly city funds, according to library officials.

Royal said they found out about the cuts when library officials held meetings at branch sites. Being West Ward residents, Royal and Peterson attended the meeting at the Vailsburg Branch last summer where 60 to 100 people attended.

"There was disbelief, anger, people couldn't believe this was going on," Peterson said.

From that meeting, about 20 West Ward residents, including Royal and Peterson, decided to band together and create the grassroots advocacy group.

"I never attended a Board of Trustees meeting until the announcement that the library was in such bad financial shape," Royal said. "It never occurred to me a library could be in such dire straits. You just took them for granted. I never though about how libraries were funded."

The group decided on a campaign of reading events at city hall and local branches, where people read their favorite books and talked about why the library was so important to them, Royal said. They engaged with elected representatives like city council members and state officials. They helped set up meetings with library officials and politicians as well, Royal said.

Royal said the group's efforts had a hand in convincing city officials not to cut the 2011 budget further, reversing an earlier announcement that an additional $2.45 million would be cut.

Those extra cuts would have resulted in the closure of three more branches, 30 percent of staff being laid off and other "austerity measures," according to library officials.

"What we have accomplished is we let thousands of people be aware of the importance of the libraries," Royal said.

Jared Ash, president of the local union representing library workers, applauded the mother and daughter duo.

"They are godsends," he said. "They are the most committed in terms of sustaining attention and fostering awareness of the critical situation of Newark Public Libraries."

Ash also called them passionate advocates who look for solutions.

Both Royal and Peterson are passionate about books. Royal, a business consultant, grew up in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, where she remembers the book mobile coming to her school. The first book she couldn't put down was a biography about Benjamin Franklin. These days, she likes to read novels by Walter Mosley and read up on Newark's history.

Peterson, a "virtual professional" who works from home, majored in African American and African studies at Rutgers University. She said she often had to go to the Newark Public Library to check out books because the Rutgers Newark's campus wouldn't have the particular books that she needed. Right now she is reading a book about the different ethnic groups in America.

Royal and Peterson now make up the most active members of the group, whose roster has dwindled. After the initial burst of anger and enthusiasm in the founding of the group, people's attentions have wavered, Royal said. People feel either the situation is okay now or "feel alienated."

They said they are looking for more to people to join and be actively engaged in making sure the library's services are preserved and improved.

They want interested people to contact them through the group’s website at preservenewarklibraries.org.