Question 1, an initiative to repeal the state income tax, has qualified for the November 2008 ballot. If passed, the current model of library service in Massachusetts would be destroyed. The MA Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) would continue to exist, but it would have no budget and no staff. Instead of the resource sharing phenomenon that is the current system of MA library service, with millions of books and other materials shared annually by the state’s libraries, we would be back to stand-alone libraries in some communities, and no libraries at all in others. MA residents would no longer have access to the library collections of other communities.

The impact to MA libraries would include:

Elimination of State Aid to Public Libraries (in place since 1890). State Aid funding helps libraries to pay for resources not funded by municipalities.

Elimination of regional library systems, resulting in no more resource sharing and delivery of library materials across the Commonwealth and no more research databases.

Elimination of the public library construction program (no more new or renovated public libraries).

Elimination of funding for automated networks (no more OCLN, no more online library systems and telecommunications resources).

Elimination of talking book libraries for the blind and disabled.

Read the MBLC statement on Question 1.