State Funding Aid to Libraries Is Threatened - Action Needed Before Friday, March 19th

The Florida Legislature is once again threatening to eliminate state funding to our state’s libraries. The attached press release from the Florida Library Association summarizes the crisis at hand.

We have seen in the past two years how funding cuts have severely damaged our public libraries and the services they provide to communities. Staff have been fired or not replaced. Branches have been closed. Hours of operation have been cut back. Collection development dollars have been slashed. That was only Round One! If this latest attempt to eliminate all of the $21.2 million of state aid to libraries is successful, our libraries will be decimated.

You can help stop or significantly reduce the funding cuts. Please visit the Florida Library Association’s Advocacy Action Alert site at the web address below.

http://capwiz.com/ala/fl/issues/alert/?alertid=14792616

Here you can compose an email message to the leaders in Tallahassee. However, action is needed before Friday, March 19th. The committees are nearing the end of their work to report their bills out of committee and introduce action on the floors of the legislative chambers.

If you value our libraries and the work they do for our communities, it is essential that you participate in this communications action. If your genealogical research benefits from our libraries’ genealogy collections, databases, meeting room space, and knowledgeable staff members, you have to help protect them. Their existence and continued operations depends on each and every one of us.

Please visit the website now, complete the online form to generate emails, and pass the word to every single person you know who uses libraries for any purpose here in Florida.

This is a huge crisis, and YOU can really help!

Sincerely yours,

George G. Morgan

President, Aha! Seminars, Inc.

Director, Florida Genealogical Society, Inc.

VP of Membership Services, Federation of Genealogical Societies

Very concerned citizen

Library of Michigan Crisis – Petition Needs Our Support

Within the genealogical community, the Library of Michigan has long been recognized as one of the premier state libraries in the country.

The cohesive Library of Michigan collection with over 180 years of Michigan history, literature and culture records and reflects the lives of not only those who remained to raise their families within the state but of millions more whose migration to other parts of the country left their footprints in the soil and records generated by their passage. Visitors come from all across the country to research at the Library of Michigan.

In addressing a $2 Billion deficit in the Michigan budget, Governor Jennifer M. Granholm issued an executive order in July, which would abolish the Department of History, Arts and Libraries. As originally proposed, the collections of the Library of Michigan would be scattered and the building built and designed to house the state library would be renovated to house a new function.

In meetings held during the Federation of Genealogical Societies/Arkansas Genealogical Society Annual Conference in Little Rock this past week, the Records Preservation and Access Committee (RPAC) representatives have initiated a petition drive in support of the Library of Michigan. This is the first time it has exercised this option since 2006, something of an indicator of the seriousness with which the genealogical community views this situation.

The RPAC petition became available for signature on Sunday, the 6th of September. The RPAC will close the petition drive on the 1st of October, the date the governor’s order is scheduled to take effect. The earlier one signs, the greater the impact.

Although the prospects for reversing this action are remote, we would not want it to be said that a state library can be closed without its users caring (or for other governors to think it a politically expedient thing to do).

Genealogists from within and without Michigan are encouraged to sign the online petition found at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/RPAC2009/petition.html. The RPAC then ask that you urge the members of every society of which you are a member to do likewise.

Additional background and the latest developments can be found at the web site of the Michigan Genealogical Council at www.mimgc.org/LOM.html. They may also suggest legislators to whom individual letters might be addressed at appropriate points in the legislative process.