Seattle's Municipal Reference Library (1913-1992)

Numerous funding cutbacks to libraries at both the state and local levels have brought home just how much librarians and their institutions depend for support on elected officials. We would hope that these people on which we depend—our legislators, council members, and other government officials—would depend on us in turn, would see libraries as a consistent and reliable source of information for their own work in carrying on the public’s business. Unfortunately, research shows a history of declining dependence by government officials on libraries and library research. As recently as the early 1970s municipal reference libraries supplied up-to-date, relevant information to officials in major cities throughout the United States. But owing to reasons as diverse as multiple budget cuts, the exponential growth of the Internet, and the increasingly reactive and complicated world of local politics, elected officials look less and less to public librarians to provide them with these services. What accounts for this decline of direct library services to government? A study of Seattle’s Municipal Reference Library (MRL) provides insight.