Letters to the Editor: April 27 – May 3, 2017
Trump Budget Proposal Would Hurt F.C. Library
Editor,
The federal budget for 2018, which the Trump administration is in the process of rolling out, includes a proposal to eliminate the federally-funded Institute of Museum and Library Services. This will have consequences in every town in America, including Falls Church.
Our Mary Riley Styles Public Library is already on a tight budget, and is dependent on federal grants under the Institute of Museum and Library Services for important services. If the agency is eliminated, our library will lose most of Zinio, the database which provides about a hundred magazine titles that are now available electronically at the library and at home on the library website.
We would lose the Find It Virginia databases, including an online literature resource center.
We would lose the mobile app (Boopsie!) that can be used to access the catalogs of all Virginia libraries and online reserves and renewals. We would lose literacy centers and nature backpacks in the Youth Services room.
Not everyone uses all these services, but many of use some of them (I’m addicted to Boopsie). These services cannot be made up by cutting other parts of the library budget (like purchases of books and ebooks).
We all lose if we lose the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Donald Camp
Falls Church
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