Cuts threaten survival of Michigan libraries

[Hannah Bell]

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s proposed budget for 2012 cuts library funding to $3.4 million—a 40 percent reduction from last year. Combined with the loss of federal matching funds and declining local revenues, libraries are facing what Michigan Library Association (MLA) Board President Christine Berro describes as a “perfect storm of funding cuts.”

“Every source of funding available to libraries—state aid, renaissance zone reimbursements, tax capture of dedicated library millages, elimination of personal property taxes and federal funds—is being chopped off at the knees. There isn’t much more we can take and be expected to survive,” Berro explained to the Niles Star, a local newspaper.

In response to the budget cuts, libraries in Canton Township, Clawson, Madison Heights and Royal Oak are restricting services and increasing fees for nonresidents. In Romulus, a small municipality in western Wayne County, a February millage vote to save the library failed to pass. The facility will close on the same day as the Troy library. And in Detroit, the largest city in the region, the public library system has lost $5 million over the last two years and laid off 80 employees in the past several months.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/libr-m31.shtml

[susanna]

1. I have something to add to this.

I once lived within the city of Detroit (have since moved just outside). I was a patron of the Detroit Public Library for many, many years. Once upon a time, their collection was astounding - anything you could want. In the last ten years, they've "downsized" due to previous cuts; only popular fiction (seems like all the biography, theology, history and non-fiction were jettisoned in favor of the pablum). This newest round of cuts will decimate Detroit's libraries further, in a city that needs access to the best ideas from near and far.

But, if you want to keep a populace ignorant (and therefore unquestioning), this is the way to go...this Republican Governor knows what he's doing.

on edit: typo

[Modern_Matthew]

2. Libraries ARE ancient. Instead, I propose giving everyone a Kindle filled with a library. nt