Washington State Library laying off some staff, changing services due to budget cuts

The doors to the Washington State Library in Tumwater could close to the public later this year. That’s because the Washington Secretary of State’s Office will likely be reducing staff in the state library system; 47 employees have received notices that they could be laid off due to reductions in state and federal funding.

If that happens, the public won’t be able to access rare items stored in collections at the library.

John Hughes, Washington state’s chief historian, sees that as a serious detriment to society. 

“If we want truly to make America great again, why would we attack its cultural institutions, its institutions of higher learning?” Hughes said. “It’s just the most wrongheaded thing I’ve seen in nearly 60 years as a reporter and historian.”

Hughes frequents the library and credits library staff with helping him discover materials that have informed and enlightened his work as the state’s historian.

Once, he was working on writing a biography of Washington’s second female congresswoman, Julia Butler Hansen. Her son had recounted to Hughes his wish to find the newsletters his mother wrote to constituents — troves of his mother’s personality and history. 

Hughes shared the story with a librarian working at the Washington State Library.

“ She reached into a drawer behind her and produced Julia Butler Hansen’s constituent newsletters for all of her time in Congress, and it was like open sesame,” Hughes said. 

From stories of riding Air Force One with President Lyndon B. Johnson, to dedicating a dam, to the calamities of the Vietnam War, it was a time capsule of her years in office. 

The biography was one of many that Hughes said he wrote in no small part thanks to the staff and resources at the state library. In his 17 year career as the state’s chief historian, Hughes said he and his colleagues have produced 220 oral histories, 22 printed books and 14 exhibits on Washington’s history.

“And we could not have done that work without this great institution,” Hughes said. 

Washington lawmakers faced an estimated $12 billion to $15 billion shortfall this year when creating the state’s next operating budget. That meant cuts to state workers and the services they provide. Lawmakers did not include the $6.7 million requested by the library for its operations in the final budget. That, combined with uncertainty about possible cuts to libraries at the federal level, could mean staff losing their jobs. 

The loss of funding will also have a significant impact on operations at the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library, according to the Secretary of State’s office. 

Already, 12 people who work for the Washington State Library received official layoff notices the week of May 19. Of those, 10 are employed at the library in Tumwater and two at the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library. Sara Jones, the state librarian, said they are planning how to appropriately reduce services, with those impacts beginning July 1.

Without staff to assist and handle the rare collections, it’s likely the state library will have to limit the hours it is open to the public, or close its doors completely. Jones said remaining staff will focus on custodial duties to maintain and preserve the items in its collection, but they won’t be publicly viewable.

The library’s collection focuses on Washington and the Pacific Northwest. Its foundation is Governor Isaac Stevens’ Territorial Library Collection. Stevens, the first governor of the Washington Territory, was given $5,000 to set up its first library. Included in that collection are letters from the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, dating back to 1524.

“There are many things in this collection that do not exist anywhere else. So when they’re not available to people, they’re simply not available,” Jones said.

Hicks displays  ”Lewis and Clark Expedition in a Nutshell,” a commemorative book made in 1905 about the journey of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. (Credit: Lauren Gallup / NWPB)

Access to rare physical materials that can’t be loaned to other entities or borrowed from the library could have a downstream impact on future research, history and writing in the state. 

Daudi Abe is a professor of humanities at Seattle Central College, a writer and a historian. Abe said the physical collections he was able to view at public libraries greatly informed his book on Seattle’s hip hop history, “Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle.”

“Not everything is online. It seems like it is, it seems like everything might be or should be digitized, but it’s not. And in some cases, the stuff that’s not digitized is extremely valuable,” Abe said. 

In particular, Abe said access to an alternative music magazine, The Rocket, provided him with a depth of information about the early beginnings and history of hip hop in Seattle. 

“ There is value in going to do physical research because you may discover something that you hadn’t necessarily intended to find,” Abe said. “ And you don’t necessarily get that with Google.”

The next generation might not be as familiar with print newspapers or microfilm, but Crystal Hicks, head of collections at the state library, said school groups that tour the space are fascinated by what they see.

Earlier this month, Hicks said the library hosted a tour for middle school students.

“ To see the light come on in these kind of disaffected junior high kids, to really turn on and say, ‘Wow, this is here. Can I come back?’” Hicks said. “ It is having an effect on them and to think that that wouldn’t be there is sad.”

Field trips to the space for students won’t be able to happen if staff lose their jobs and the library has to limit public access. 

“I think that it’s to their detriment, that they’re not having as many different interactions as they can with institutions like this,” Hicks said.

The state library isn’t sure how many people will lose their jobs, and how that might affect services. There is some hope for new funding. Lawmakers passed a bill that will add a recording fee on superior court documents, and some of that revenue will go to the state library.

Jones said that will help some, but not completely. The library won’t begin to see the benefits of that revenue for four to five months. 

“ At this time, the answer really is that the doors will be, for the most part, entirely closed and access to that collection really is not gonna be available until we get funding,” Jones said.