Oblivion of Florida's History What is proposed by the governor in regard to dispersion of the programs of the Florida Department of State is so totally "off the wall" I can't help but hope and believe it will be if not blocked altogether, at least modified substantially in the legislature. But any way you want to look at it, this proposal appears to be an all out assault on Florida's history and historical consciousness. The archives serves a variety of related lesser purposes, but its primary purpose is to serve as the official repository of the permanent records of the state and hence its institutional memory. Turning those records over to a university (not that I have anything against FSU... I have a couple of degrees from FSU)... any university, defies the most basic and essential function of the archives. So does separating the archives from the records management functions which feed records in a progression from current use to archival preservation... weeding out the dross of records with only transient values along the way; and so does putting the state library or its holdings at FSU. It's not clear to me where the archives are destined for... the Department of Management Services or FSU, but such collections as exist in the library are pretty skeletal given Florida's long history and only fairly recently begun efforts to collect materials about it. Such an off-center movement of these programs can only damage them. As constituted, the state library & archives are primarily oriented towards serving governmental information needs and the general public of the state. Many of the holdings of the library and archives are part in one and part in the other of the two repositories. It's not unusual to find an index in the archives and the set of volumes to which it refers in the library... or vice versa. If archives & library go to FSU but stay in the same building and work pretty much under current procedures... that could work after a fashion. But the existing university libraries are oriented towards serving students and faculty of the particular institution, and, to a lesser degree, academic researchers in general. Under existing policies & procedures at the FSU Strozier & other libraries, I and most other non-student and non-faculty people would have difficulty even checking out a book there... whereas the circulating materials of the state library are presently open to be checked out by virtually anyone. And turning over an archives or even the records management function to a housekeeping organization like the Department of Management Services is scary. Their focus is almost assured to be far more on the dustbin, than on history. Granted, both the state library and the archives have many materials that do not circulate & would not circulate no matter who their custodian is... but putting them at FSU would be pretty much like redesigning the human body and putting the brain in the left thumb: not impossible to do, just really, really not appropriate.. The same goes for putting museum programs into the Department of Environmental Protection. Their focus is upon the environment and stewardship of land, not cultural artifacts. Yes, the parks do include related programs but the cluster of historical programs under the office of the secretary of state were put together because they have synergistic relationships to each other and central integrating functions. Putting this kind of nexus of programs together is part of a general pattern of organization in state governments because good reasons for doing so have general recognition. Supposedly the dispersion of these programs is about saving money; but that makes no sense. Saying that it is about money must be a pretense. Either our historical and cultural programs are going to continue, in which SOME INSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT are going to have continue to pay the cost, or they're going to be tossed on a scrap pile. Both the universities and the state government are drawing funds from approximately the same sources, but the sources as related to the purposes of these programs make much more sense together and in the domain of general government than scattered across academia and submerged into other tangentially related programs. There are no significant staffing or facility efficiencies that can be obtained by breaking these programs up. The only assured result of a break-up is diminution of the functioning of the programs, even if their staffing isn't reduced... and sure enough that is proposed too. The Department of State is a tiny portion of state government. The only way that any substantial amount of money from any source could be saved by altering the organizational basis of the programs now part of it, is, essentially by wiping them out, either altogether or pretty close to it. The next step after dispersing these cultural and historical programs, would be to whittle further away at them through time... and this would almost automatically ensue, because in each case they are proposed to be put out on the periphery of the mission and programs of their proposed new institutional "home away from home", and money is tight everywhere. The thing that is the most scary about this proposal, is that it appears to be indicative on the governor's part, not just of an indifference... but of an active animosity, hatred or loathing against knowledgable institutions in state government and preservation of and access to information about our state's history. From where I stand it appears that the man who is supposed to be governing the state has taken a notion to overthrow it and if not absolutely destroy, at least dissolve, scatter, dissipate to the winds, and greatly diminish the fundamental ability of both our people and our government to learn of our own past. Richard White South Gadsden Street Tallahassee, FL