10-02-2025
Former state librarians oppose its elimination
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Four of South Dakota's past heads of the State Library are taking a stand against an attempt by the Noem-Rhoden administration to defund many of its operations and eliminate most of its staff.
They issued a statement on Saturday night strongly urging state lawmakers to oppose House Bill 1041.
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The House Education Committee last week voted 13-0 to recommend that HB 1041 do not pass.
The next decision will be made by the Legislature's Joint Committee on Appropriations that sets state government's budget each year.
Then-Gov. Kristi Noem proposed getting rid of many of the State Library's functions and staff when she revealed her budget recommendations to legislators in December. Her budget office recommended cutting 12.5 positions from the current staff of 21.5 and stripping $1,030,267 from its current $2,371,975 state general funding and taking away all of its current $1,399,443 federal funding.
Noem didn't mention the State Library reduction in her budget speech, but she told lawmakers that she was recommending many cost reductions in state government because revenue is flowing into the state treasury at a slower rate than lawmakers had forecast. Noem resigned last month to become federal secretary of homeland security.
Her successor, Larry Rhoden, said in his first speech to lawmakers that he wouldn't be submitting a budget of his own this legislative session.
The State Library is part of the state Department of Education. The legislation to defund the library came at the department's request. The legislation also would eliminate the State Library Board.
State Education Secretary Joe Graves was the only person to testify for HB 1041 during its hearing by the House Education Committee. Ten people spoke against it. Some were librarians. Others included Sara Rankin from the South Dakota Municipal League and Republican Rep. Tim Walburg.
The four former state librarians who issued the statement on Saturday are Daria Bossman, who served 2012-2021 during the Daugaard and Noem administrations; Dorothy Liegl, who served 2004-2007 during the Rounds administration; Suzanne Miller, who served 1999-2004 during the Janklow administration; and Jane Kolbe, who served 1986-1999 during the Mickelson, Miller and Janklow administrations.
'The State Library is an efficient, cost-effective, trusted and valuable resource for all South Dakotans,' they said in the statement.
They said a review in 2006 led to reducing the State Library staff of 37 to 27, and a decade later the staff was further reduced to 21.5. At the same time, the State Library became more technologically advanced.
'This new system which was named South Dakota Share-IT allowed the State Library to link all participating libraries with no cost to the local school or public library. The end result is that patrons can discover what each library has for their physical holdings,' the joint statement said.
The statement also said that South Dakota's universities and a few larger public libraries are members of the international OCLC library network. 'However, without the State Library's connecting software and their librarians who manage it, most of the state will go dark,' the statement warned.
'The information isolation will be devastating to local schools and communities, particularly rural areas. Without access to magazine articles through subject databases and access to books held by hundreds of linked South Dakota libraries, individual research and inter-library loan will be severely curtailed,' the statement said.
It added, 'In short, the proposed drastic reduction of personnel and budget cuts would severely limit the State Library's capacity to support k-12 schools, homeschoolers, public and academic libraries. Additionally, the economic impact over time would be crippling, again most especially to rural schools and communities. This ill-advised legislation will NOT save tax-payers' money. In fact, it will most likely have the opposite effect, costing tax-payers more money but with limited access to fewer resources, trainings and services.'
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