Don’t pull the plug on Iowa City history library

Did Iowans choose to lose their history?

Probably not. But that is what is happening in their name. With the Reynolds administration’s decision to close the State Historical Society’s long-standing Library and Archives in Iowa City, priceless collections documenting the lives of ordinary Iowans and many of the institutions that lie at the heart of their communities will be dispersed to the four winds and perhaps never recovered. Most will not end up in a repository where they can be easily accessed. This plan is being implemented without prior vetting or public discussion.

The decision to close the Iowa City branch of the SHSI will have profound ramifications.

First, skilled archives staff and librarians in Iowa City will be terminated, and two trained archivists in the Des Moines facility have been laid off. Archivists and librarians are essential to collecting, organizing, and providing access to diverse historical records and publications.

Second, even by the most optimistic estimate only 40% of the manuscripts and archives in Iowa City can be accommodated in the Des Moines archives. The rest will be dispersed, some no doubt lost forever or made largely inaccessible. The collection includes 8,000 feet of manuscripts, 3,500 oral interviews, and 1 million historical photos.

Third, the library materials — microfilmed newspapers and census (10,000 reels), book and pamphlet collections (160,000 volumes), state historical journals, and countless other materials (3,000 maps, 10,000 bound volumes of historical newspapers, 550 ft of television newsreel film, 3750 broadsides, including WWI and World War II) — will be similarly dispersed or disposed of.

Genealogists, family and community historians, and academic scholars rely on the library and archival materials which are deeply interconnected. To separate them makes no sense.

Fourth, collecting new historical records and materials will largely grind to a halt with limited staff and storage available. Valuable collections already acquired will go unprocessed, even if retained. History won’t stop.

But it is not just the Iowa City archives and library that are at stake. The state has discontinued publication of a state history journal, the Annals of Iowa, which succeeded the Iowa Journal of History and Politics, going back 125 years. For decades, the Annals has published important and pathbreaking research on diverse aspects of Iowa history.

Why is this happening? The Department of Administrative Services, which now oversees the State Historical Society of Iowa, claims it’s because of “ongoing financial considerations” and “duplication in function.” In fact, there is little overlap between the Des Moines and Iowa City libraries and none between their archival collections.

The journal is independent and peer-reviewed, and it does not run a deficit. According to the DAS administrator, closing the Iowa City branch and dispersing its collections will at best save $500,000 in a state budget of $9.4 billion. This is a modest cost for saving a vital and irreplaceable record of Iowa’s heritage. Speak up now.

Shelton Stromquist is professor emeritus of history at the The University of Iowa.