This e-mail from govdoc-l is being reposted with the permission of Doug Way.

Subject: Depository Concerns in Michigan
From: Doug Way
Reply-To: Discussion of Government Document Issues
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:23:12 -0400
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Hello everyone,

On behalf of the Government Documents Roundtable of Michigan I wanted to make a posting to inform you of an executive order recently made by Gov. Granholm. This order calls for, among other things, the elimination of the Department of History, Arts and Libraries and for the elimination or transfer of the library's Federal Depository collection. As the state's regional library, this obviously has dramatic implications for the state's depository community and for public access to government
information.

For the complete executive order, please see: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/gov/EO36_285881_7.pdf. For a thorough summary of the executive order and the Michigan Library Association's position (as of last week), please GODORT of MI's Red Tape blog, which is maintained by Jon Harrison
(http://blogpublic.lib.msu.edu/index.php/2009/07/14/governor-granholm-iss...). Jon has been posting different details as they emerge, so if you are interested in following this situation I would encourage you to read the Red Tape blog (http://blogpublic.lib.msu.edu/index.php?blog=5).

Needless to say this is a difficult and challenging time for the library community in Michigan. The governor's executive order and other proposals floating around Lansing impact not only the depository program, but a wide range of library services that the residents of the state take advantage of on a daily basis. Unfortunately, just at the time when the residents of our state need libraries the most they are the ones who will suffer the most as they lose access to information
(government and otherwise).

Regards,
Doug Way
President, GODORT of MI

I'd like to take note of the fact that Governor Granholm is a Democrat. It's important to remember that friends and adversaries of libraries come from across the political spectrum. You can never class one party or group of people as wholly bad and another party/group as wholly good.

We at FGI would welcome discussion of any aspect of the closure/reassignment of the Library of Michigan in this space. A wound to one library is a wound to all.