Our SLOP Bucket Sighted

A blog titled "The Way of Improvement Leads Home" has commented on this blog, back on the 3rd of March.

The blogger, a Messiah College professor named John Fea, comments that

"I have blogged on this before and will blog on it again real soon. Unfortunately, historical and cultural institutions are often the first to go during times of economic crises. This is a shame, since during difficult times these kinds of institutions remind us of who we are as a people. Our shared past offers a source of strength and communal identity in times of trial."

He also issues an appeal to readers to speak out on our behalf.

Thank you!

Bless You SLA!

The Special Libraries Association (SLA) "sent a letter to Governor Edward G. Rendell on 17 March 2009 expressing strong concern over the proposed 50% budget cut for the State Library of Pennsylvania."

That's as reported Tuesday in the SLA "Public Policies Connections" blog.

It calls Rendell's budget slashing "short-sighted" and expresses the SLA's desire for postponing any huge cuts until there is

a detailed plan is produced and vetted by qualified information and policy experts who understand the critical nature of maintaining valuable services and access to information for current and future users.

The blog further reports that

SLA asks that Governor Rendell and his leadership team provide a detailed plan of how the State Library will function after such an extreme budget cut. SLA believes a more fully funded library budget will serve the interests of government, business, and private citizens and will save more money in the long run.

Good luck with that!

Here is a link to a PDF version of the March 17th letter from the SLA Chief Executive Officer Janice Lachance to Pennsylvania's governor Rendell.

Again, thank you Special Libraries Association!

HACC Training Announcement

NOT that any of us are currently unemployed ... yet.

But the news is out on PennLive that HACC has announced that it

is offering tuition-free retraining courses toward employment in jobs in demand in the region for workers who have lost their job since Sept. 1.

HACC has outlined as many as 35 short-and long-term programs that can lead to jobs for successful graduates, with classes starting as early as April. The courses will be offered throughout HACC's various campuses in the area.

There's a pdf brochure on their web site describing the program, but without details on just which programs are included. The news article says that

among the in-demand fields, the college will offer workers retraining in all health care programs and in manufacturing trades such as welding, electrical work, heating ventilation and air-conditioning and in building construction.

So it appears that if you're tired of books, magazines, and microfilm, this could be an opportunity at least to look into. Might keep you busy for a while anyway.

Announcement Looming?

So, what did we learn this week?

That "the plan" for what the State Library 'will look like' in the future -- and for staffing that Library -- will be completed at "the end of March or early April." Or, in other words, real soon

And then they will "start talking to people."

Unless, like so much else in state government, it drags on and on, misses deadlines, gets delayed, and happens in fits and starts.

Whenever the boom drops, predictions are that it will create a huge "us vs. them" split in the State Library staff. One side of the split will be the people thrown out onto the welfare rolls; the other side will be the people who still have a job to hang on to.

Avoiding that sort of thing is one of the reasons that the corporate world hands out severance packages and shows furloughed people the door. It is over and done with. Some in the Library are assuming that the administration will more likely expect soon-to-be-furloughed people to continue working full steam ahead right up to the end of the fiscal year. (That could be part of the reason for all the expressions of uncertainty -- "well, we just don't know what is going to happen....").

Anyway, when it happens, just try to remember that whichever side of the divide you're on, it wasn't the people on the other side's fault.

Add Rolling Furloughs for Us Non-Essential Employees

In Thursday's Harrisburg Patriot-News newspaper (and online at PennLive), we're reading about Rendell's current furlough idea: make other people do his work. As the story opens,

Leaders of major state government workers' unions were told today they need to come up with about $89 million in savings to help balance the state budget over the next 15 months.

And if the unions don't reach agreement on how to do that by the end of the month, Gov. Ed Rendell will make it happen through a mandatory two days of unpaid leave per month for non-essential employees starting in April and running through June 2010.

And we all remember who "non-essential employees" are. That's Rendell-speak for everybody but the highest paid people on his payroll, plus prison guards.

Based on the last furlough of nonessential state workers in 2007, Rendell's plan would likely affect at least 25,000 state government workers, except those involved in public safety or direct care of patients.

In other words, according to the furlough notices in the last few budget years, we're pretty much all "non-essential."

Two days a month adds up fairly quickly.

The rolling furlough plan would cost workers about six weeks' pay during the next 15 months.

That is, Rendell wants to whack our paychecks by nearly 10%. THEN put us out the door on lower unemployment.

Rendell Hires Old Friend at 100K per Year

We're pretty much speechless at reading this Associated Press story on PennLive at 10:55 this morning:

Gov. Ed Rendell is paying an old political hand $100,000 to spearhead a publicity campaign for programs financed with billions of federal economic-stimulus dollars.
Rendell's hiring of Ken Snyder as a subcontractor comes at a time the governor is calling for spending cuts and tax increases to avoid a state budget shortfall of more than $2 billion.

Snyder is a Philadelphia political strategist and media consultant who briefly acted as Rendell's press secretary when he first took office in 2003.

Administration officials say the hiring of the publicist is critical to getting the word out to people who can be helped by the $18 billion dollars that Pennsylvania expects to receive in stimulus money and benefits over three years.

Two down? How many yet to go?

Word on the street (or, actually, in the hall) is that one of our number has accepted a job elsewhere already -- although our sources also tell us that it isn't official yet, so has not been announced publicly.

Well, congratulations anyway!

And congratulations to our other departing colleague whose retirement had already been scheduled before the current devastating budget proposal reared its ugly head.

Opening Advertised in Dauphin County

We're not suggesting this is necessarily meant for you, but it could be of interest:

Posted 3/13/2009: Public Services Trainer, Dauphin County Library System, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

PUBLIC SERVICES TRAINER Dauphin County Library System – EAST SHORE AREA LIBRARY This position is responsible for the design, content, delivery and assessment of training for employees and volunteers in the library automation system, online catalog, public computing management software, general search strategies and orientations for all employees and volunteers as needed.This position requires a Masters of Library Science (MLS) degree and a minimum of 2 years Library experience. Prior training or teaching experience is important, knowledge of Horizon and SAM is preferred.Must have a valid PA driver’s license and willingness to work a flexible schedule.Starting salary $36,000. Send cover letter and resume or application by Jim Carlin, Human Resources Manager, Dauphin County Library System, 101 Walnut Street, Harrisburg, PA, 17101.EOE.Applications are available at all DCLS branches.jcarlin@dcls.orgDCLS -EEO

When applying, please mention that you saw this ad on LISjobs.com/Library Job Postings on the Internet.

Good to know that somebody's hiring! Just don't everybody flood them all at once.

Business Week Carried the Story

Guess we missed this one last week: Business Week reprinted the Philadelphia Inquirer story on March 5th in its online edition.

American Library Association Publicity

The e-newsletter of the American Library Association, 'American Libraries Direct,' for March 11th 2009 recognizes the plight of the State Library by publishing a link to last Thursday's article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. You have to scroll way down to the "Seen Online" section, but it's there.

They don't offer any commentary of their own on the situation here in Harrisburg, but at least it's more national publicity.

Go Back and Read the Comment

Please scroll down and read the comment that a reader in Virginia sent in to yesterday's March 11th post about the Centre County Times editorial!

It's both heartening and disheartening at the same time.

Centre Daily Times Editorial

Today's Centre Daily Times has an editorial titled "Higher priority given to trinkets" that speaks in behalf of saving the State Library.

The editorial begins

Imagine a Pennsylvania with no state library. Benjamin Franklin could not and, as clerk of the Assembly, was instrumental in creating it in 1754.

Ed Rendell apparently can, however, and his proposed budget, if passed by the current General Assembly, will be responsible for closing it in 2009.

Libraries, local museums — our history and our culture — these are the “nonessentials” targeted for elimination as lawmakers try to deal with a $2.3 billion revenue shortfall and a deepening recession.

While Rendell’s spokesman touts the governor’s “well-known” record of support for libraries and education, his priorities — revealed by how he proposes to allocate the state’s resources — speak otherwise.

Among the sacrifices, the apparently acceptable casualties about which Rendell wants to hear “no whining,” are life-enriching resources and programs that enable us to read — and find meaning in — more than just the Dow Jones industrial average.

That's pretty much what we feel, too.

The "trinkets" in the title, by the way, refer to the fancy desk sets handed out to legislators when they were sworn in earlier this year. Did you hear about that? Our legislature paid "$17,700 for holy books and souvenirs — a Harrisburg 'tradition,' repeated again and again and again" in January because "each member of the General Assembly, just for showing up and getting sworn into office, received a Bible, Torah or Quran and a nifty desktop pen set fashioned from a 3- inch chunk of coal." I mean, really? Some of our elected officials have to have a closet full of these from all the previous times they've been sworn in.

It would have been a little thing, sure, but they could have skipped that expense this year.

The editorial also mentions the Dan Surra hiring fiasco. And it wraps up with a plea that should be echoed across the state:

Lawmakers could start by paying for the commemorative items to which they feel entitled, a drop in the bucket, perhaps, but trends must start somewhere. Then they could tap into the state’s rainy day fund — money set aside for desperate times exactly as these. And they most certainly should eliminate the legislative slush fund they maintain to hold as leverage in the annual budget battle with the governor.

And if taxes have to be levied on smokeless tobacco and cigars, and on those who stand to profit greatly — and damage the state’s precious wild lands in the process — by extracting natural gas from the rock layer a mile below ground, so be it.

Then, when politicians boast about their support for indispensibles that enrich lives other than their own — as being among their priorities, we might believe them.

At the Library we're just trying to enrich people's lives, not our own bank accounts.

Basic Instinct: Concede or Get Laid Off

Hey, you can all rest easy, folks. We have it in print that the governor

said his "basic instinct is to save people's jobs. If there is a way I can do it and minimize the number of layoffs, I will take that."

That's in the Harrisburg Patriot-News on Monday March 9th 2009 at 2:57 PM under the headline "Rendell leans toward cutting employee hours, not jobs" by Jan Murphy.

What a relief!

Of course, he also says that if the unions don't give in to his demands for concessions before the end of March, then there

will be immediate layoffs or temporary shutdowns of certain aspects of state government that would cause many more workers to miss an occasional days' pay.

Seems to us that his basic instinct always comes back around to layoffs and furloughs.

Governor Makes a Mistake!

This just in! (Well, just in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer.)

"Budget proposal had error on state library staffing"

Amy Worden, whose story earlier this week caught national and international attention (see posts below), shares the following news with the world:

Apparently, doomsday has not arrived at the historic Pennsylvania State Library.

In his February budget address, Gov. Rendell proposed chopping library funding in half, from $4.84 million to $2.39 million, a steep cut in a lean budget laden with across-the-board reductions.

But yesterday, Rendell said a figure published in his budget proposal that projected a 90 percent staffing reduction was wrong.

Rendell said he would never allow staffing to get to the point where the library would have to close.

He said the library's 50 percent cut would mean a similar staff cut - from 56 to about 28 employees. But more jobs could be preserved if savings can be found in other areas, said his spokesman, Chuck Ardo.

One of Pennsylvania's four major research libraries, the state library was founded in 1745 by Benjamin Franklin. Across the street from the Capitol, it houses the state law and education libraries, and has one of the largest newspaper collections in the country.

State Librarian Clare Zales said she was assessing the role of the library with the goal of trying to balance materials preservation and access.

Nevertheless, she said, with fewer employees, hours and services will be reduced.

Library advocates say there is little doubt the cuts will have a "negative impact" on services such as interlibrary loans and research requests.

"It's not an operation loaded with people sitting around doing nothing," said Glenn Miller, executive director of the Pennsylvania Library Association. He said the smaller cuts would be "clearly a step in the right direction, and we welcome it."

As to the budget book figure, Ardo said, "We are trying to determine exactly where that number originated and how it got into the book."

Can any of you spell "backpedal"?

We all know how much Rendell loves libraries. He would never allow this kind of staff cut. Well, big whoop!

Should we breath a huge sigh of relief? READ THE ARTICLE, folks. Sure, our governor and Chuckles are mystified how the Complement section of the budget message decided (apparently all on its own) to whack 50 or 51 of our staff members. But he's only here going back to 'oh, maybe half of you are headed for unemployment!' I shouldn't think so.

This same article quotes an impartial library advocate (Pennsylvania Library Association executive director) as saying, "It's not an operation loaded with people sitting around doing nothing." You bet. So when half of those busy people are tossed out by the governor's backpedaling budget, the remaining half won't be able to pick up all their work because we're already too busy.

Does anybody else wonder why it took all the way from February 4th to March 6th for the governor to notice such a huge mistake in his budget?

Does anybody else wonder why the Department of Education's human resources folks have also been assuming the 90% staff cut was correct?

Does anybody else wonder what other sorts of retribution the governor will throw at us for exposing this particular budget goof?

Does anybody else wonder whether the announced end-of-March closing of the Resource Center over at the Dept. of Education building will now be un-announced?

Our Story Hitting the Big Time

After the Philly Inquirer article (see yesterday's post), the story got picked up by the Associated Press and spread abroad . . . and we mean abroad.

Thank you, International Herald Tribune, the Global Edition of the New York Times, for printing the AP release under the heading "State news of national interest" on March 6th 2009. In the section for the East, we are one of two stories:

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Under Gov. Ed Rendell's budget, the 263-year-old Pennsylvania State Library's appropriation would be slashed by more than half to $2.3 million for the year starting July 1. Library Commissioner M. Clare Zales said she can "keep the lights on," but may have to scale back the current Monday-Saturday operating schedule. The library's 56-person staff is likely to shrink.

We also made USA Today under the state news section for March 6th (where they print one news story from each state in 3 or 4 lines).

Harrisburg's Patriot-News posted it online at 3/5/2009, 12:36 p.m. EST under the headline "Budget cuts likely to hit Pa. state library hard."

The Lewistown Sentinel joins the chorus with the same headline on March 5th.

Then there's WHTM ABC TV channel 27 in Harrisburg.

And the Times-Leader from Wilkes-Barre, "northeast Pennsylvania's home page."

And Butler County's "Butler Eagle."

There is also "Library Stuff: a Weblog by Steven M. Cohen".

And probably others. Thank you ALL for publicizing our plight.

Philadelphia Inquirer Article

We're hitting the big time now. Toward the end of this week, Amy Worden of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote an article in their paper headlined "Pa. state library faces budget cut". The online version is dated March 5th, the same as the paper version.

With nice photos!

The opening lines read:

The Pennsylvania state library, founded by Benjamin Franklin 263 years ago, has survived two wars and a catastrophic fire.

Now, library advocates fear, its latest threat may be its most dire.

In the face of a multibillion-dollar deficit, Gov. Rendell wants to halve the state library budget - from $4.8 million to $2.3 million - which could all but wipe out the 56-person staff.

Worden goes on the relate that "Library commissioner M. Clare Zales said she was scrambling to find other ways to reduce costs - such as limiting hours - and preserve more jobs." That current party line (cutting other things in order to cut fewer jobs) doesn't seem to have gotten through to the governor's office, though.

Read what the governor's spokesman says, and particularly notice what he does not say:

A Rendell spokesman said that the administration was committed to libraries and that it kept its promise to restore funding for the hundreds of local libraries that had a 50 percent reduction in 2003.

"Our support for libraries over the course of administration is a matter of public record," Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said. "Our proposal for this year is simply a matter of fiscal reality."

What was it he said about the huge proposed cut to their own State Library? [blank space here, because he said nothing]

The administration restored local library funding that had also been whacked by 50% some years ago? Way back in 2003. Wait a minute, didn't the current administration take power in January 2003? So, wouldn't that mean that the current administration was the group that cut the public library funding it is now patting itself on the back for replacing? Uh, yeah, right.

And wait a minute! Read further down in the article:

"The state library cut comes as Rendell is proposing trimming by 5 percent funding for 624 local libraries in order to save $2 million."

You restored funding that you had cut? And now you're cutting it again??

Your support for libraries IS a matter of public record. And that really isn't something you should be thankful for!

Well, this Philadelphia Inquirer article includes quotes from Glenn Miller ("They're obviously going to be crippled by this.") and Elliot Shelkrot ("I can't imagine how they would function as a library with five people."), both friends of the State Library. Thanks for the support, guys!

And Clare promises to "keep the lights on" (those would be the lights that were just all switched to compact fluorescent fixtures and bulbs after months of delays) even if we're really slashing hours. Good. Whoever still has a job will at least be able to see. Maybe by then the "heavily fortified rare-book collection" will finally be open for the public.

What Have We Learned?

At a staff information session held a week ago, human resources officials faced the full staff of the State Library. On our side, we pretty much had three simple questions:

1. Will my position be funded in the new fiscal year?

2. Will I be the person filling that position (or will someone else bump me out of it)?

3. When will I know the answers to the first two questions.

The answers were shorter than the questions: don't know, don't know, and don't know.

It took longer for them to tell us that, though. For the first question, we're told that our administration needs to determine 'what the State Library will look like' in the new fiscal year. [we're guessing something on the order of 'like a ghost town' ... and we hope we're just being cynical and not realistic] The answer to the second depends on the first to some extent. [although clear, updated seniority lists should be made easily available to all staffers; can't these be posted on the Inside PDE web site?] And the answer to the third question was really 'not for three weeks at the very least'.

There was lots of good will coming our way from the human resources people. They even made it sound like everyone who was going to be furloughed from the State Library by the governor would get placed somewhere else in state government after the civil service people review our resumes and translate our job experience into something else.

Lots of good will, as we said. Just not any real answers.

Allentown Alerted to our Plight

Back on the 13th of February one of the blogs by a reporter for the Allentown 'Morning Call' carried news of the impending disaster at the State Library should Rendell's budget plan be adopted.

The Morning Call's state house reporter John L. Micek blogs under the title "Capitol Ideas" and on Friday the 13th he wrote:

Now This Is Uncool.

Now, granted, we rarely have occasion to travel to the Pennsylvania State Library, which sits on the grounds of the Forum complex here in Harrisburg. But as a former library worker and big-time library fan, we were nonetheless disheartened to learn that it could lose most of its staff because of this year's budgetary carnage.

Fifty of 57 positions at the Library would be gone under Gov. Ed's budget plan, the Patriot-News reports this morning, prompting a "rethinking" of its role in the civic life of the state.

Rendell's spending plan would slash the library's budget in half, from $4.8 million this year to $2.4 million for the budget year starting July 1.

"The tough times we're in now mean we will need to fundamentally rethink the role of the State Library," Department of Education spokesman Mike Race told the newspaper. "That said, there clearly are assets and services we want to preserve, including hours of operation in which the library is open to public use. [But] until a budget is finalized, we can't speculate on exactly how services might be impacted."

According to the P-N, the Library houses an extensive general and legal reference collection and is perhaps the state's leading repository of Pennsylvania and U.S. government reports, from election results to postings of salaries of all state employees. It has a state-of-the-art rare-books room that preserves a collection of books and newspapers started by Benjamin Franklin.

Mostly copied from the local Harrisburg newspaper, to be sure, but if folks outside of Harrisburg hear about -- and care about -- what's in the offing here, well, maybe there's some hope.

"Budgetary carnage". We love it!

PhiloBiblos Blog on our side

Missed this one earlier: on February 15th the 'PhiloBiblos' blog wrote

Some really scary news out of the Keystone State this week, where Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed 2009-2010 budget cuts fifty of fifty-seven positions at the State Library of Pennsylvania. Funding for the library would be slashed by fifty percent, to just $2.4 million. "The State Library houses an extensive general and legal reference collection and is perhaps the state's leading repository of Pennsylvania and U.S. government reports, from election results to postings of salaries of all state employees.It also contains a state-of-the-art rare-books room that preserves a collection of books and newspapers started by Benjamin Franklin." (That collection is now online at LT here). Awful news, and I hope that the state can figure out a way to keep the library going in a meaningful way.

We hope so, too; we hope so, too.

It's not as ugly here in Pennsylvania (yet) as it is in Oregon, where this same blog reported that the Oregon Historical Society "library will be closed to the public after the 28th of this month [February], and current positions are being eliminated beginning on 13 March; some staff will be retained to manage photograph and film reproduction orders."

Center County Paper Editorializes on our Behalf

On Sunday February 22nd 2009 the Centre Daily, from up in State College, PA, published an editorial titled "Our View - Cultural identity is at Risk."

Okay, so it isn't completely about the State Library, but we get pretty high billing:

In tough economic times such as these, politicians, as they should, look for areas to cut expenses. But the first place they aim their axes -- libraries, museums and other "nonessential" cultural institutions -- easy targets though they may be, should be the last.

Under Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed budget, Pennsylvania's museums face layoffs, reductions in visiting hours and even closures. The staff at the State Library -- an important repository of legal reference works, government reports, rare texts and even a collection of books and newspapers begun by Benjamin Franklin -- would be gutted, with 50 of 57 positions eliminated and one person transferred. Community libraries and local museums, always in danger of having the lights turned off, could go dark for good. And that would be a disaster, not only for genealogists, history buffs and bibliophiles, but for everyone -- for society itself. To know where we are -- who we are -- and where we are going, we must first know who we were and where we have been.

Then they point out that, for example, $9.5 million of taxpayers' money has gone to the 'bonusgate scandal' (some in bonuses, more in lawyer's fees to investigate). BUT, the editors in State College add,

Of course, information like that will be harder to find when the State Library is all but closed. Historical perspective -- perspective of any kind -- will be lost when our legacy is locked away or sold to the highest bidder on eBay. So will our bearings, our sense of direction and, literally, our identity. Tough times are exactly when we most need the direction, perspective and wisdom our past provides. Those who view history and culture as dead, with nothing of value to offer to today, are not the ones who should be making critical decisions about tomorrow.

Thank you, friends of culture! Thank you, friends of free-flowing information! Thanks you editorial staff of the Centre Daily!!