WKAR Features
(2010-06-25)
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Hundreds of people rallied in August 2009 to save the Michigan Library.
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The Governor appointed a committee to come with recommendations for "re-purposing" the building and possibly shutting down part or all of the state library. Today (Friday), that committee will release its report.
But the plan the committee will offer looks nothing like the big dream that was envisioned last year.
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In 2009, after a study conducted by Michigan State University, it looked as though MSU would take over the building that now houses the library and historical museum. MSU proposed a center with a hands-on science museum, an IMAX theater, an incubator for start-up tech companies and a charter high school with a focus on science and innovation.
A year later, for lack of interest and funding, that big plan has shrunk. MSU is no longer involved.
But the state library collections are still in jeopardy.
Michael Smith is director of the Walter Reuther Library at Wayne State University. He's vice-chair of the committee considering the future of the library and historical center. Smith says more than any other place in Michigan, this is the people's building.
"This is the building where citizens come, thousands every day, and if anyone drives by on a normal day, you'll see buses outside and you'll have to wade through hundreds of kids," Smith says. "It's a very active building so we want it to remain what it was founded for."
Smith says preserving that open access could be difficult. Severe budget cuts - by some estimates as high as 23 percent - could mean the library won't be able to maintain some collections. Some may have to be consolidated, creating two floors of open space in the library.
"And this is still in flux," Smith explains. "The budget has not been finalized. There's been a great outcry from genealogists to maintain the genealogy collection, yet the budget may not support that."
"People come here to use the library," says Washtenaw County Clerk Larry Kestenbaum. "They come here not just from Michigan, but from around the country; certainly around the Midwest. The Library of Michigan is a unique resource which once we lose it, it's gone."
Kestenbaum is a historian who was among hundreds of people who rallied in support of the library last summer. He also runs the website www.politicalgraveyard.com.
"At the Library of Michigan, they have the largest and most complete collection of Michigan newspapers on microfilm that exists anywhere and one of the largest genealogical collections in the country," says Kestenbaum. "It's really shocking that it would go to waste like this."
For Bob Trezise, serving on the committee has been a complicated process. Trezise is president of the Lansing Economic Development Corporation. He's been trying to balance the interests of many constituency groups: genealogists, senior citizens, blind people and those who just love the state library.
Trezise says repurposing two floors of the library would cost a lot of money - much more than the $2 million the state would save by leasing the space. He says many of the groups that were initially interested have bowed out.
"We were hoping quite frankly there would be stimulus money to do that," Trezise says. "There's not. So that's a problem. Number two, there's just not money anyway. No one has money. I mean, someone has to pay to move in there. Someone has to agree to pay the lease and the maintenance. It wouldn't have been easy anyway, but in these particular times it's even more difficult."
So far, no one is moving any books out of the state library. And Trezise says it might not happen for a long time, if ever. Today the committee will present its recommendations to the governor. But all those great ideas could be just that - ideas. It may be a long time before anyone writes the library's next chapter. © Copyright 2012, WKAR
