Declining state support has impelled the Wisconsin Historical Society library and archives in Madison to establish a closer relationship with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. A report on a six-month study of the society’s funding base, approved in mid-February by its board of curators, calls for making the collection an equal partner in the university library system with shared acquisitions, cataloging, and conservation efforts. UWM Provost Peter Spear has come out in support of the proposal, emphasizing the importance of the collection to the university.
“If we do not take steps now to stop the hemorrhaging, future generations will look back to our time and find a gaping hole where our history should be,” Wayne McGown, chair of the Library-Archive Study Committee that issued the report, said in the February 18 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The society suffered a $516,000 budget cut in 2002 as part of a $1.1-billion state budget adjustment.
The report also recommended increased private fundraising, charge-backs to state agencies for state-mandated collecting, and restoration of the position of North American history bibliographer.
Posted February 24, 2003.