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May 10, 2010

Libraries feeling the pain

May 10, 2010
http://www.dailyrecord.com

Editorial

We certainly can sympathize with the few dozen librarians from Morris County who
boarded buses last week to go to Trenton to protest a projected 74 percent cut in state library funds. The numbers are not pretty. State aid to libraries is proposed to drop from $14 million under current spending to $3.6 million in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Librarians say a cut of that magnitude would decimate important services such as
interlibrary loans, which allow a person to go to a local library and obtain materials from any other cooperating library.

We are not going to disagree with that diagnosis, or with the importance of libraries. The librarians are right to be upset.

But here's the harsh reality — state aid is being cut in all areas. Libraries are not
necessarily being singled out. The Daily Record ran a photo of a librarian holding a sign that read a "74% cut is not shared sacrifice."

Actually, it is. The state cut about $820 million in aid to school districts for next
school year and in some cases in Morris County, districts lost 100 percent of their aid. Others, including the county's largest school district, Parsippany, lost about 80 percent of its aid.

Our point is not to poke fun at the librarians' argument. But it is to say that substantial cuts in state aid are being made elsewhere. One can not ignore that.

The governor's aim is to administer harsh medicine in the hope that the state's finances and the overall economy improve. Will that happen? Probably, but no one really knows when. But when it does occur, state aid should begin flowing again.

Meanwhile, the Morris County Library does have a foundation that supplements tax support by raising money privately. In these times, such creative ways are more important than ever.

Posted by tumulty at May 10, 2010 2:08 PM

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