DCA responsible for library’s troubles

To the editor:

Congratulations for reporting on the threat to the State Historical Society's research library in Iowa City. This facility is in 'a slow fade to black,” as reported March 19. But the reality is more nefarious than that. Rather than this 'slow fade” being something inevitable, the State Historical Society of Iowa is being murdered by the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) in Des Moines.

I have been a volunteer at the society for 26 years and I see the results firsthand. Staff has been decimated, there is no money for acquisitions, no money for microfilming newspapers, no money for journals or books. A state-of-the-art conservation lab designed for the preservation of books and papers stands empty. Hours have been cut drastically and the society's flagship publication, Iowa Heritage Illustrated, has been 'suspended” with no evidence that it will ever be resurrected.

It seems the DCA's ultimate intention is to make the situation in Iowa City so unsustainable that it will be 'forced” to announce that the building must be closed and the collections dispersed.

If this happens, we will lose the state's premier historical library and archive. Iowans need to know that a large part of our collective history, preserved by the State Historical Society over 158 years, is under direct threat by those whose ostensible job is to protect it.

James Beranek

Cedar Rapids