Connecticut Won't Cut Library Aid, After Lobbying Pays Off
Governor's budget would have eliminated digital library and reciprocal borrowing
Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 09/02/2009
- $5.4 million sought in savings
- All direct library aid would have been cut
- Statewide programs would have been axed
Thanks to strong lobbying, rallies, and positive press coverage, Connecticut legislators have passed a budget that maintains crucial state library services that Governor Jodi Rell had proposed eliminating. The budget passed on September 1 will become law without Rell’s signature.
In May, Rell’s revised budget proposal, aiming to respond to an $8 billion dollar deficit, proposed cutting more than $5.4 million in annual funding for state library services over the next two years.
The statewide digital library, iCONN databases—currently free to public, school, and academic libraries—would have closed, as would reQuest, the statewide catalog of 20.8 million holdings, which facilitates resource sharing and interlibrary loan.
Connecticard, which reimburses municipal libraries for borrowing to those outside their jurisdiction, would have been eliminated. So would annual state grants to 180 public libraries. Cooperating Library Service Units and their various services, including discounts on purchasing, would have been axed.
Forceful response
The Connecticut Library Association (CLA) responded with a significant effort, inspiring members to hold rallies, generate press coverage, and lobby their legislators. CLA president and director of University of Hartford (UH) Libraries Randi Ashton-Pritting herself reached out to some 20 people involved in the state legislature with ties to UH.
Christine Bradley, Executive Director of the Connecticut Library Consortium, praised CLA for hiring Bobby Shea, “the best lobbyist at the Capitol,” and said CLA members “embraced his plan of systematically educating and influencing the leadership of the General Assembly about the importance of libraries and state supported library programs.”
“We got the most extensive positive press coverage libraries have ever had,” Bradley said in an email circulated to library supporters. “In the beginning, Bobby said that his goal was to take libraries off the table when the budget cutting starts again next year, as we know it will. If we are to meet that goal, it will be because we never surrender, and we cannot forget.” Library advocates are busy thanking their legislators for the restoration.
