Report: “South Dakota Library Advocates Say Proposed Cuts Would Be ‘Catastrophic'”

From KELO:

 Library advocates are calling for more attention on South Dakota’s upcoming budget after Gov. Kristi Noem’s recommended budget included cuts to the State Library.

Many librarians are concerned about the proposed cuts, with just over $1 million is set to be cut from the State Library and almost $1.4 million from federal funds.

The State Library is responsible for the accreditation of librarians and libraries themselves, providing support for local and school libraries across South Dakota, as well as digitizing specific specialized collections and state publications.

“It’s going to be catastrophic in many ways,” said Elizabeth Fox, President of the South Dakota Library Association. “The state library, one of the things that they do is manage some federal funding, which has also been cut.”

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Fox said that several programs libraries across the state offer would vanish.

“Those funds provide databases for schools and public libraries, so most of the databases available to search newspapers, magazines, journals, world book encyclopedia, study aids, there is a database called Learning Express Library that has tests to help you practice for the ACT and SAT or GRE’s and many of the professional exams. All of those will go away,” said Fox.

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Filed under: Funding, Libraries, News, Public Libraries, School Libraries