As though the American government didn’t learn from the EPA library closure fiasco and outrage, according to Library Journal, the National Agricultural Library FY09 budget proposal includes a $3 million reduction. An excellent letter of concern was sent by the United States Agricultural Information Network to Washington. Here is a portion of the letter:
The President’s FY 2009 Budget Estimate includes $18 million for the USDA National Agricultural Library, a $4 million reduction from the FY 2008 Budget estimate, and $6 million less than the FY 2007 actual budget for the Library.
Significant changes proposed by ARS include redirecting $993,000 in AWIC funds to support NAL participation in a new digital portal for veterinary medicine; eliminating funding for the National Agricultural Law Center, the nation’s leading source for agricultural and food law research and information, which complements and works with NAL, which does not cover these areas; and most importantly, reducing funding for non-digital content/document delivery/Special Collections by $3,000,000.
As a national library, the print collection is core to researchers and the agricultural history of the nation. It is this reduction of $3,000,000 for the print collections that is of immediate concern. In FY 2007, NAL document delivery services filled 29,000 requests from the NAL collection for materials which were available in print-only–not available electronically. In FY 20009, such requests for print-only materials would not be filled.
The ramifications of the proposed reductions or redirections of NAL funding include not only the inability for NAL to fill requests for materials available only in print, but the complete cessation of book and journal purchases, and the inability to catalog and make available print materials already acquired. In addition, cancellation of the receipt of free publications from the U.S. and other countries would have a major impact. In recent years the USDA required all USDA-authored publications to be delivered to the NAL; but what good is this if there no money to catalog them and make them findable?