Brent:

Your private .02 means a great deal to those of us who know, like, admire, and respect you, and to those of us who have used the LofV.   It is too bad that the governor of Va. has so little respect for the institutions that made the state an important and great one.  It is one more indication of the failure of public officials to understand that culture and history are central to the creation of a truly great socity and nation.

Paul Finkelman


Quoting Brent Tarter <[log in to unmask]>:

> Va-Hist, Va-Roots, Other Friends:
>
> Since the news of the consequences of the state budget cuts on the
> programs
> and services of the Library of Virginia was made public, subscribers
> to
> Va-Hist and Va-Roots have been very gracious in their compliments to
> the
> Library and its staff members for the services we have tried to
> provide.
> Some subscribers have gone off the list to send private messages, which
> are
> also very much appreciated.
>
> Alas, we are far past the point of being able to do anything about
> this
> circumstance except pick up the remaining pieces and hope that we can
> hold
> them together.
>
> This is my personal opinion, not to be confused with any official
> explanation:
>
> The state's entire budget has been in a serious crisis for more than
> two
> years. Remember the 2001 General Assembly session that failed to resolve
> the
> problem then? Well, after the recession began and as it worsened, things
> got
> even worse. For the last couple of years it has looked to me as if the
> Library was already operating at or perhaps even below a sustainable
> minimum
> budget. Many critical staff positions remained vacant for want to money
> to
> pay a salary. Many of our staff members worked long and unpaid extra
> hours
> to keep serving our many constituencies, among whom historians and
> genealogists are but a few. So much had already been cut out,
> including
> almost all routine operating funds, that when another round of big cuts
> came
> there was nothing left to cut but staff and programs.
>
> I cried more this week than in the whole preceding 50 years together
> as
> excellent projects and plans and colleagues and friends all around me
> fell
> one after another to the consequences of the arithmetic.
>
> We are all gratified by the kind words, and we certainly understand
> the
> frustration, but I cannot see that anything can be undone unless
> somebody
> brings us a good many millions of dollars this weekend and promises to
> repeat the gift every subsequent year.
>
> The many valuable resources available through the Library of Virgnia's
> web
> site will remain on line, including the extraordinary Digital Library
> Project images, as Elizabeth Roderick pointed out in a message
> yesterday.
> But please be patient and keep in mind that everything at the Library
> has
> been affected, and response time to requests of all kinds (telephone,
> e-mail, real mail, in person) will no doubt be slower because there will
> be
> fewer people and resources to do the work.
>
> $0.02 worth of private opinion from
>
> Brent Tarter
> The Library of Virginia
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http:www.lva.lib.va.us
>
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>

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