Statewide Databases

To: New Hampshire Public and School Librarians

From: Michael York

Subject: Statewide Databases

Date: May 12, 2010

During the current economic difficulties facing New Hampshire, the State Library has had to cut its budget dramatically. We have done everything possible to minimize the impact on the library community and NH citizens. During the last year, the State Library has experienced direct staff layoffs and the inability to replace retiring state library personnel. In addition to these very difficult personnel cuts, we have had to cut other areas including supplies, acquisitions, travel budgets, etc.

The renewal of our database subscriptions is coming up soon, and we have been negotiating for some time with our vendors on prices of database packages. It is clear that we will have to cut our database offerings in order to stay within our available funds. At this point, we can only commit federal funds for database subscriptions.

Our current goal is to provide a foundation of databases that would be most usable to all NH citizens. Unfortunately, the available funds do not allow us to provide direct access to the schools, and we are also forced to drop many age-appropriate databases. The databases that are in jeopardy include Novelist, Novelist K-8, Business Source Premier, Middle Search Plus, Primary Search, Professional Development Collection, Salud en Espanol and MAS Ultra School Edition. We are investigating other ways to provide assistance to schools.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact me.

Michael York
State Librarian
New Hampshire State Library
20 Park Street
Concord, New Hampshire 03301
603 271 2397
Fax 603 271 6826