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Re: FW: Seattletimes.com: Reading the library its last rites?



FW: Seattletimes.com: Reading the library its last rites?Thanks, Kit.

Best wishes,

Thomas Berry, Archivist
Historical Construction Equipment Association
16623 Liberty Hi Road
Bowling Green, Ohio 43402
Phone 419-352-5616
Fax 419-352-6086
tberry@hcea.net
http://www.hcea.net


----- Original Message -----
From: Kit Leary
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2002 6:27 PM
Subject: FW: Seattletimes.com: Reading the library its last rites?


For Thomas Berry and all those who had trouble with the link for the
original Washington State Library story, keep scrolling down from here to
read the full text.
Kit Leary
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
-----Original Message-----
From:   kitl@osfashland.org [SMTP:kitl@osfashland.org]
Sent:   Tuesday, February 05, 2002 12:55 PM
To:     kitl@osfashland.org
Subject:        Seattletimes.com: Reading the library its last rites?
This message was sent to you by kitl@osfashland.org, as a service of The
Seattle Times (http://www.seattletimes.com).


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To view the entire article, go to
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?s
lug=library28m&date=20020128




Reading the library its last rites?


By Autumn Koepp
Seattle Times Olympia bureau


E-mail this article Print this article

OLYMPIA — If Gov. Gary Locke succeeds in closing the Washington State
Library to help balance the budget, he'll face a host of questions, not the
least of which will be: Who'll take over the library's services, and what
will happen to its 3 ½ million books and other archival materials?
"It's like Humpty Dumpty," argues state librarian Nancy Zussy. "If the state
library is eliminated or broken up, you cannot reassemble it again. It is
unrealistic."
The library, with $9 million a year in state money, has become one of the
focal points in Locke's efforts to close a shortfall in the biennial budget
of more than $1.2 billion.
Laboring under a recession and initiatives that have raised spending and cut
taxes, the governor has proposed more than $500 million in spending cuts and
an assortment of new revenue, including tax increases, a new lottery game
and spending from state reserves.
The library, until recently a low-profile institution, has come out fighting
for its very existence.
If the facility were shut down, Washington would be the only state without a
state library, Zussy and other backers noted.
The governor's proposal calls for closing the library by October, which
administration budget officials project would give library staff time and
financing to shut down after the Legislature finalizes the budget around
mid-March.
However, library staff says it would take more time, and perhaps more money,
to close the operation.
In addition, the millions saved by closing the library — about $5.6
million in the rest of the biennium — is only a drop in the bucket,
Zussy said.
The state librarian said Locke acted without sufficient facts.
Not so, said Locke's budget director, Marty Brown. Though programs such as
the library are quite valuable, some state agencies have to take a cut, he
said.
"Every 5½ million that we don't take from some program would have to be
taken somewhere else," Brown said.
Plus, with the Olympia Timberland Library blocks from the Capitol campus,
the state library is not a core function, Brown said.
"We talked to legislators and legislative staff and couldn't find a great
amount of use," he added.
Many citizens who have not visited the Capitol campus might not be familiar
with the library, which until its recent move to new quarters in Tumwater,
Thurston County, occupied a site between the House and Senate office
buildings.
In terms of walk-in traffic, only about 50 people come in during any given
day, compared with 1,100 daily visitors at the downtown Olympia library.
But the library is a unique repository, providing research and information
services to the Legislature and state-agency staff. It holds millions of
items, including books, journals, microfilms and state and federal
documents.
If it were shut down, historian Don Brazier said, there'd be no way he could
finish his book on the history of the state's government from the mid-1960s
to the present.
"It would be too difficult to come up with the resources," said Brazier,
whose long career has included stints as a state representative and chairman
of the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.
Brazier said he's spent 4,000 hours using the library's collection of
newspapers to write his first book, "History of the Washington Legislature,
1854-1963," and to research his current project.
The library is organized to serve a core group of state officials and
workers who research public policy, Zussy said. That group numbers upward of
50,000 potential users.
In addition, the library is used by students, historians, genealogists,
writers and lawyers who can find everything from old ferry schedules to the
first bill passed in the Legislature. Library staff handles a multitude of
telephone inquiries, e-mails and faxes.
It also maintains an online-search service called Find-It! Washington, used
by about 3,500 people daily to find information about state and local
government. The library has 13 branches in state institutions, including
Western State Hospital and 10 adult-correctional facilities.

Washington could lose $3 million a year in federal money the state library
receives to help develop and support local libraries, said Zussy.
However, Jim Crawford, a budget analyst for Locke's Office of Financial
Management, contended the state would find another agency to qualify for the
federal money.
About 145 employees now work for the library.
Though Marty Brown, the budget director, said some library employees would
have "bumping rights" to other state positions, Zussy worried that many
librarians would not find new jobs in such a specific field.
Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, questioned how the
state will physically close the library.

"You just can't turn out the lights when you are talking about the state
library," she said.
Marty Brown, the budget director, suggested one option might be to break up
the collection and relocate it to other spots, such as public libraries, the
University of Washington or The Evergreen State College.
Handing over some documents to the UW would require an unknown amount of
additional space, staff and money, said Charles Chamberlin, UW deputy
director of libraries.
Dispersing the library's collection also would make researching harder for
patrons, Zussy said.
In December, the state spent $1.5 million to move the library five miles
from the Capitol campus to a temporary location in Tumwater so the Senate
could use its quarters during renovation of the earthquake-damaged
Legislative Building.
That investment would be wasted if the library shut down, said Zussy, and
the state would have to find another tenant to pay the $75,000 monthly rent.
The state signed a 10-year lease for the Tumwater facility.
But Marty Brown said the state will need about 300,000 square feet of extra
office space near Olympia in the next five years. The library's temporary
home is about 50,000 square feet.
House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Helen Sommers, D-Seattle, was
noncommittal on the fate of the library.
"We have to make some very tough decisions," she said. "Generally, we are
not taking things off the table."
Sommers said she thought the functions of a library have changed with the
growing popularity of the Internet.
But in a recent sample of 197 journal articles requested by the library's
patrons in 2001, only five were available free on the Web, said Cathy Turk,
assistant director of support services for the library.

Autumn Koepp can be reached at 360-943-9882 or akoepp@seattletimes.com.








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