Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:30 AM Subject: [MIGEN] Fwd: Information on the Library of Michigan Good morning, Here are two of the many, many e-mails received by the Michigan Genealogical Council over the past week in support of the Library of Michigan. The first one is a letter to the Governor from our Vice-President, Sue Irvine. The second is a report of Lt. John Cherry’s Town Hall meeting in Detroit, on Thursday, July 15. The disturbing thing about these Town Hall meetings is they have very little advance notice of where and when they are being held. Please share the news with your Society membership. The Library of Michigan needs our help NOW. There was a shocking article in the Lansing State Journal on Sunday, July 19 outlining the Governor’s plans for the Michigan Historical Center, the building that houses the Library and Archives of Michigan. Please add your comments to the bottom of this article. The Lansing State Journal article is located at: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090719/NEWS06/907190625/1102/NEWS06 . In addition, please write to your State senator and State representative urging support for Senate Bills 503-527. SB 518 is the one, which specifically addresses the Library. These bills would place the parts of History, Arts, and Libraries under the Secretary of State. From the comments, we have been hearing and reading, MSU is not interested in all of the assets of the Library of Michigan, in fact the Executive Order instructs them to break up parts of the collection. As Sue mentions in her letter, our website is being updated daily. The newer items are on our home page, http://mimgc.org. Older items can be found by visiting the Legislative Items page, which can be found on the left hand menu or directly at http://mimgc.org/legislation.html. The Michigan Genealogical Council is planning an event where we can show our support for the Library; details will be available as soon as everything is finalized. Tom Koselka, Corresponding Secretary Michigan Genealogical Council LIBRARY OF MICHIGAN – is in an ominous position!!! “The Value of the State Library” (June 28, 2009) article by Candy Spiegel , Livingston Daily news, says it very well! Read her article and others at http://MIMGC.org <http://mimgc.org/> Here are some more thoughts! If you don’t know where you come from, how will you know where you’re going!? Genealogy is the 2nd biggest hobby in the United States! People travel across the country finding records and photos. Knowing a relative served in the Civil War makes the study of history more interesting! WWI, WWII, Were my relatives in the service? Which battles? Were they community leaders? Why do I enjoy art? What about my health? My DNA? When Michigan’s governor came out with her executive order on July 13th the family history research community was in shock! “Surely there’s a mistake!” She’s not going to split up the 10th largest collection in the United States?” Michigan State University doesn’t want it. MSU needs classrooms and teachers. Where would be park?? Roger Moffat calculated that Granholm’s idea would save only $2 million. A drop in the bucket! “If everyone in Michigan paid $0.30 we could cover that!” Then we heard more! She’s planning to “rent out” our building? For a high school? 500 students? It’s supposed to save $9 million? That’s the combine History, Arts, and Libraries budget. (Is she including the archives in her plan?) The Library of Michigan has a special heating/cooling system designed for open shelving of books. Sound travels from floor to floor in the large open center. Her idea would require extensive heating/cooling changes along with the need for increased bathroom facilities – costing much more than “rent” money. I’m wondering if the Lansing area Schools have funds to “rent” such a building in the first place. Who’d be their students? Does our governor think this idea would “pass” so the legislators’ kids had a cool new building?? Is that a “good” use of the 10 th largest Genealogical collection? Capital Area District Libraries? The Lansing Library system keeps their historical and biographical materials in the basement of the Forest Parke Library. Thousands of photographs, dozens of family and personal manuscripts, original artwork, pre civil war diaries. Boxes and boxes! Lansing Libraries open this collection for 4 hours twice per month! They cannot afford hire staff for the collection they have. They certainly can’t cram much more in that basement! We, the genealogical community know that times are tough! But “Tough times make Tough people!” to borrow a book title! 180 + years of collecting Michigan’s story. Have you touched a copy of your family’s history that’s 150 years old …a book actually written by your great-great-relative. Have you seen his “mark”? What about his log mark? Have you said “Thank God, someone saved this book!” “I knew great grandparents came to Michigan – but didn’t know in which county to look!” “Whow! Grandpa came to Michigan from New York! Look – here’s a book with his name written 100 years ago” “Thank you! Thank you!” We hear those comments all the time at the Library of Michigan! Donations mostly! Part of our collection is from generous contributions from The Abrams Foundation. Millions of dollars throughout the years! Donations, gifts, and great leadership built our collection! The Library of Michigan has a vision! Michigan residents can be VERY proud of the State’s Collection. In Fort Wayne, the Allen County Public Library draws hundreds of people to their facility year after year – just to do genealogical research. Ft.Wayne has facilities for visitors! They’ve had national conventions! They sponsor multiple yearly events focusing on the use their collection. The Library of Michigan could do the same. Michigan residents would do better to publicize our State Resource. Granholm wants JOBS? Build a few motels/hotels/inns to accommodate visitors in the area just like they do in Indiana! (no – don’t use our library for a hotel either!!!). Advertisers, trip coordinators, clerks, wait staff!! Promulgate Lansing area events. Our library is free! How about coupons for food or motels? Advertize tours of the library and museum. Add the Library of Michigan to the tourism brochures! Sue Irvine, Vice-president, Michigan Genealogical Council. 4215 Northgate St NE Grand Rapids, Mi 49525 616-364-9629 sjirv@yahoo.com Where to look: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(twnw5o4520diom45tdocax45))/mileg.aspx?page=SponsorSearch<http://www.legislature.mi.gov/%28S%28twnw5o4520diom45tdocax45%29%29/mileg.aspx?page=SponsorSearch> Senate districts: http://senate.michigan.gov/2003/senatedistricts.pdf Representative districts: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/House_state_16750_7.pdf * * *From:* Mary Lou Duncan *Sent:* Sunday, July 19, 2009 10:56 PM *To:* *Subject:* "Town Hall Meeting" last Thursday night Hi all, This is fairly urgent. There is to be another "*Town Hall Meeting*" chaired by Lieut. Governor Cherry this week in *Royal Oak*. I believe it is to be held at Royal Oak High School, but I don't know the day. It will again be scheduled from 6 to 7:30 p.m. - still light out. I think it would help our cause to have at least five or six people from genealogical societies attend the meeting and speak out for retaining the Library of Michigan and the Archives. Perhaps some from the Oakland Co. Gen. Society could make it. These meetings are NOT well publicized. There was a brief article in the Detroit Free Press Thursday, *the morning of the meeting. *It said that it would be at Wayne State but no mention of whether tickets would be needed or what building it would be in. It took me *four *phone calls to various departments at Wayne before I could get the information - and then it was 4 p.m. and I was told I should be there by 5:15 p.m. [For Joanne - I was safe enough. It was right across the street from the parking structure and a police car was there afterwards.] It is billed to be a Town Meeting on "Streamlining State Government" but has nothing to do with it. If you search on Google for "Seven Core Functions of Government" it will take you to the office of Governor page that contains them. They are full of the type of "mission statements" that will bring "yes" votes on the little clickers. The people in the audience are given clickers to vote "yes" or "no" after each of the seven statements are read. The tally is then shown on a screen. At the end one man said, "You are going to go back to Lansing and tell everyone that the public overwhelmingly is in favor of what is written, when, in reality it is about means, not ends, and is so general that you get "yes" votes. [Think of motherhood and apple pie.] *However*, at the end of reading each statement, the audience is encouraged to comment and a mike is given to the person raising his hand. The last sentence under *2. Education* is "*The state should provide a statewide public library system to support the continuum of education for both our children and adult citizens."* I stood and asked how they could say that and then close the LIbrary of Michigan and give some of the collection to Michigan State University for their library where parking for elderly adults and the infirm would be extremely difficult and end participation in MelCat that enabled citizens around Michigan to find the location of books and check them out, having them sent to their local library - and how could they break up a collection that was started 180 years ago? After they finished all seven "statements", they asked for additional comments. I immediately held up my hand and asked why they would want to break up a collection and library that was one of the ten most outstanding libraries in the U.S. for local history and genealogy. I said, "Mothball it, shorten hours, charge if you must, but DON'T break up the the collection - once gone, it is permanently GONE." I also read the most important points of the Executive Order for those who didn't know about it. State Representative Fred Durhal, Jr., District 6 (that includes Wayne area), took exception to my remarks. He introduced himself to the group and said he was on the Appropriations Committee and deep cuts MUST be made even if we don't like them. He said U of M in the Gutenberg Project is providing thousands of scanned books and he seemed to think that those in the Library of Michigan were covered (they are not all covered.) Anyway, I had several other people give me the "thumbs up" sign when I was done with my passionate plea to retain the library You can reach Fred Durhal, Jr. at P.O. Box 30014, Lansing, MI 48909-7514; or freddurhal@house.mi.gov or toll-free (877) 877-9007 If others went to the Town Hall Meeting this week in Royal Oak, they could also comment after the section on Education and at the close. I would suggest some sitting in one row and some in another and more than one person asking to speak in the roving mike. That way, there would be multiple people being vocal about their support. They could each mention a different aspect of the order. Isn't "*Eliminating* or transferring to other suitable institutions the Federal Documents Depository and *the non-Michigan Genealogy collection*" somewhat akin to "book burning"? Are not books relating to the first thirteen colonies essential to history research on the formation of the United States? Isn't the role of New York in sending people to Michigan important to our state history? Many points could be made. I think a call to the Royal Oak newspaper or police department or high school might elicit the date of the Town Hall Meeting but I know it is scheduled for this week. Obviously, they don't want many people to show up. Call or email Lt Gov. John Cherry's office to find out. The more the merrier! FYI: There were only 12 people in the auditorium at 5:52 p.m., 26 people at 6:06 p.m. They didn't start until 6:22 and at a max there were 35 people including about 7 Wayne Univ. administrators. All Wayne staff were urged by email to attend. Obviously, it didn't work. Mary Lou _______________________________________________ RootsWeb MIGEN Mailing List http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/USGenWeb/MIGEN.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MIGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.20/2251 - Release Date: 07/20/09 18:29:00