Archives redux

I did a little database research about the changes in hours for the Library of Congress. You have to remember that it is a tried and true strategy of government agencies that when their budgets are cut, they immediately press to cut back services used by the public, figuring that the outcry from the public will help them get more money so they can maintain services.

This strategy was discussed in "Library Access and Audience" in the Washington Post on 2/12/1994. The article starts:

In what has become a melancholy ritual for the Library of Congress, Librarian James Billington recently went to the Hill to deliver the year's budget request...and to announce a curtailment of reading room hours--in this instance, the elimination of Sunday service. Mr. Billington says he will save $185,000 by this expedient...."

$185,000!!!!????

According to "Spending Reductions Force Shorter Hours: Library of Congress Cuts Protested" from the LA Times on 3/15/1986, 1,000 people used the LC on Sundays!

That's a lot of people, even if on a percentage basis it reflects a small portion of the total user base.

Eventually, the "boy that cried wolf" strategy fails, and the services are in fact cut. This is a Congress that cares more about whether Washington Nationals games are carried on local cable systems than about funding for the Smithsonian Museums.

I have mentioned that the DC cultural heritage tourism effort is hurt by the fact that the Smithsonian Museums have had their hours cut back over the years, and that the tourism tax stream that mostly goes toward the Convention Center and related promotional activity needs to be considered more broadly, as a funding stream that could support other cultural heritage activities.

One of the things I've mentioned is that it is worth considering using a portion of these funds to bring back extended hours at the Smithsonian Museums and the Library of Congress.

According to "In DC, Lines Start to Form at Museums, Monuments," the Seattle Times reported on 3/18/1986 that in 1984, the National Air and Space Museum stayed open til 9 pm, and the Museum of American History, the Hirshorn, the Castle, and the Natural History Museums stayed open until 7:30 pm.

While there are slightly extended hours in the summer, each of these museums closes at 5:30 pm most days of the year.

As I said in the earlier posting, the National Archives is being deliberately misleading by using percentages to report limited usage during the hours they want to close. (1) the numbers of people could actually be significant, even if they are a smaller percentage (cf. the book How to Mislead with Statistics). (2) serving different segments of the total population served by offering evening and/or weekend hours is in order.

Evening and weekend hours of service are typical of national libraries and archives such as the Library of Congress but also the British Library, the British Museum, which is open every day, including the reading room, the National Archives of the UK , which is open in the evening two nights/week, plus Saturday, the Pompidou Center of Art and Culture in Paris where the reading room is open til 10 pm every day of the week! The Archives of France do offer Saturday hours. The Biblioteca de Nacional España is open til 2 pm on Saturdays and 9 pm during the week.

Plus, the U.S. National Library of Medicine is open on Saturdays, although they close at 5 pm during the week.

Index Keywords: libraries; cultural-heritage-tourism