TRENTON - It doesn't take much to get city residents talking about how much they love their libraries.
Just mention the impending closure of the four branch libraries next month because of budget cuts, and stories of their central role in people's lives come pouring out.

"My favorite library is Briggs. When I was in middle school, I used to spend so much time there," recalled 20-year-old Justin Schanck. "My aunt would be like, "Where are you?' I'd be at the library. For hours! I'd get the encyclopedias and just read through them."

"Just learning, all the time," added his mother, Andrea Schanck.

The Schancks were standing just inside the entrance to another library, the Cadwalader branch on Hermitage Avenue, reminiscing and ruing the news that only the main branch downtown will remain open after Aug. 14.

"It's taking away a positive thing," said Justin Schanck, a musician who favors books on science and self-empowerment. "They're only going to have one library? Are you serious?"

Security guard Warren Goldstein overheard the conversation and chimed in.

"There's going to be more crime in the neighborhood, because there's going to be nothing for the kids to do," said Goldstein, a guard in the libraries for eight years.

Yesterday afternoon, Cadwalader branch gave ample examples of what the city will lose next month. More than a dozen people sat at computers or browsed the shelves. Children played computer games or listened to music, while adults checked their e-mail or leafed through magazines.

One librarian led a patron through a step-by-step computer instruction course, tapping on the keys with a pointer and giving typing hints. Another librarian checked out books and DVDs for a steady stream of customers.

Fliers on the counter advertised a talk on the "Rainforest in Science and Art" tomorrow and gave a schedule of nearly daily activities for July, from walk-in resume help to knitting classes.

At the East Trenton branch on North Clinton Avenue, Carolyn Roberson and her 18-year-old daughter Jasmine were enjoying the air-conditioned quiet but also doing critical work at the library computers.

Mom, a nursing assistant dressed in peach-colored scrubs, was looking for job openings at hospitals, while her daughter was filling out applications for financial aid before she starts at Rutgers University in the fall.

"The computer at home is not working," Jasmine explained. "I'm going to get a laptop for school. Until then, the library."

The library's imminent closure is "not good at all," her mother said. "Especially for the kids -- and the grownups -- because a lot of people don't have computers at home. What about the kids in this area, especially if they don't have transportation?"

Eleven-year-old Daquan Wilson, who was playing a game on a nearby computer, said word of the closings made him "pretty mad." During the school year he comes to the branch every Friday, and during the summer he comes every day, he said.

"They told us the library's closing, so I wanted to come here all the time," he said. "The books they have here, my brother and I like. Sometimes I'll put the book up and look at it and draw."

After a few minutes, he and his brother Raquan went upstairs to the spacious children's room, where library page Damaries Archila give them and two other children paints and helped through an arts and crafts project. They dabbed at plastic butterflies, coloring the wing sections with purple and green.

As two men boxed up books to take to the main library, Archila said she did not think the children would make it to the main library on Academy Street after East Trenton closes.

"I asked them what they will do, and most of them said they'll probably go home, watch TV, or be in the street," she said. "We've had a couple of parents complaining, because most of them are working, and the only safe place for the kids is the library."

Patricia Tumulty, executive director of the New Jersey Library Association and a West Ward resident, said municipal budget problems are leading some suburban libraries to close one day a week, but that large urban systems are beginning to close branches as well.

In Newark, employee furloughs will force all library branches to close on Mondays and Tuesdays, starting in mid-August and continuing through December. Two branches will be completely shuttered, and only the main branch will remain open on Saturdays.

"It's hitting all libraries in different ways, but certainly the urban libraries much harder, given the unique role they serve in their communities," she said. "People have less. They depend on the library much more. You cannot even apply for a job unless you have a computer."

She said the state library's budget to aid local libraries was cut roughly in half, to $3.8 million, in Gov. Chris Christie's budget for the new fiscal year. The state just received a large federal grant to beef up internet access and provide job assistance at libraries, but that money will not go toward regular library aid.

Mayor Tony Mack has renewed his call for regionalization of the city libraries, under which they would become part of the Mercer County Library System, saying such a move would make more resources available to residents.

But county spokeswoman Julie Willmot said yesterday that the county cannot simply absorb the cost of operating the branch libraries. As in other towns that already participate in the county system, Trenton residents would have to start paying a library tax to cover the branch costs.

"County Executive Brian Hughes has long promoted the regionalization of government, but only in instances where taxpayers will see a real, dollar for dollar savings," she said.