First News

It was the morning of February 4th 2009.

The Commissioner of Libraries had called the entire Office of Commonwealth Libraries staff together for a mandatory meeting.

What could it be about? The governor's budget announcement that would be coming out just before lunch? Perhaps.

Or perhaps it was to tell us that 51 out of 57 of us were going to be fired -- make that "furloughed" -- by the governor's proposed budget.

Ah, yes, that's what it was. The decimation, the virtual closing of the State Library of Pennsylvania, or OUR State Library of Pennsylvania.

Many of us listened to the governor's budget address that morning. Oddly, he did not use "the f word" ("f" as in "furlough") once.

The part where the State Library staff is wiped out is buried deep, deep within the budget. More on that later.