Budget hearings can be very stressful times for anyone whose agency is funding by public dollars. Veterans have a pretty good idea how the hearings might proceed but there’s always the possibility of a left field question or comment.
I used to bring public service statistics, past budgets, breakdowns of line items for the next year’s budget and snacks, just in case things went much slower than anticipated. I can remember one year appearing at 10:30 pm (yes, pm) suffering from an oncoming cold and feeling like I had a 101 degree fever.
However, all that looks pretty good in comparison to what Florida state senator Ronda Storms (yes, real name) put the Secretary of State through in his budget hearing for state aid to libraries. In Florida, the Secretary of State oversees state support of libraries.
Seems like Ms. Storms doesn’t like the Dewey Decimal system because someone has to teach her how to use it. Many of us who work in libraries don’t like it either and some libraries have created catalogs using LibraryThing, for example. However, Dewey is the classification system that nearly all public libraries use. To abandon it because people can’t walk in a library and go to a section of stacks labeled “Gardening” doesn’t make sense financially. The total cost to come up with some other classification or ordering system is mind-boggling. And, although I like the idea of being able to go to a section of stacks labeled “Gardening,” you would still need some kind of system to arrange the 125 books that might be in a larger library’s collection. You’d still hear patrons say: “Is this all you have?” ” Don’t you have that new book by…?” “But, I want to know how to grow a Biblical garden.”
Senator Storms wasn’t yet finished. She didn’t like the fact that public libraries spent state money on “Seinfeld.” That’s right, “Seinfeld,” or any other TV series purchased on DVD. Can you say ACLU? She cogitated about libraries getting increased funding if they agreed to spend the money on books rather than TV shows. I would have said “sure thing!” Take the state money and buy more books and use local dollars to buy DVDs.
However, I suppose this scenario is preferable to others. At least, Senator Storms had some ideas about what public libraries looked like, what was in them, and how they were arranged. Vastly better than the legislator who smiled the entire time she spoke to me about her childhood love for her library and how she walked there every week and how much good libraries brought to communities and how important to the esteem of those communities their libraries were and, then, voted to cut the funding to my library.
