Dear Faculty, Librarians, and Staff,

 

On March 14, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in Washington, D.C. was shut down and all its staff put on administrative leave under a presidential order to eliminate the IMLS "to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law". The IMLS is the principal source of federal funding for school, public, and academic libraries. On June 6, a federal judge declined to block the order.  While the full significance of these actions is still unclear, there are several clear and immediate impacts.

 

As of July 1, the following statewide resources (previously funded by the IMLS through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners) will no longer be available:

 

 

In addition to the loss of these resources, the Library's ability to digitize documents going forward will be severely limited. The library has no in-house digitization capacity and has relied entirely on IMLS grant-funded services for this. The IMLS has supported this activity through Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grants. Westfield State University has benefited from LSTA grants administered through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) and the Boston Public Library. 

 

Over the last decade we have coordinated with several organizations on campus to digitize documents, including the Alumni Office, Registrar, President’s Office, and Student Affairs. This work has allowed us to digitize 52,327 pages of documents related to the history of Westfield State University. They include yearbooks (1909-1997; 1999-2000), catalogs and bulletins (1844-2013), student newspapers (1996-2016), Westfield Normal School Lyceum Records (1852-1859), Westfield Normal School Early Entrance Records (1844-1856), and the Westfield Normal School General Catalog (a single volume, 1839-1889). This funding has been critical to preserving and providing access to the history of our institution and the individuals who have made it what it is today. We have one last group of Athletics-related resources we will digitize through this program, but after that funding will likely be discontinued. To see these resources, visit our Archives Digital Collections web page. 

 

Also, due to university budget reductions, the Library will not be renewing campus-wide access to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD), and CQ Researcher. The Chronicle had become prohibitively expensive and use of the other two resources was too low relative to their cost to continue. We will rely on Opposing Viewpoints in lieu of CQ Researcher. My thanks to the librarians for working to prioritize our resources and for examining which resources can best be used to fill in gaps in our online holdings. The library consortia and organizations of which we are members (MCCLPHEI, Fenway Library Organization, Lyrasis) are also considering how best to cooperatively backfill lost resources.

 

Finally, when the fall semester begins, library hours will be reduced from 92 hours per week to 84 hours per week, closing at 11pm rather than midnight, Sunday - Thursday, and having reduced weekend hours. Reference services will no longer be available on evenings and weekends, primarily due to the reduced budget and low usage. Library staff will still be able to provide information assistance and referral at those times. Our current library hours are reflected on our website: https://lib.westfield.ma.edu/about/hours