Let's save money by cutting the library's budget

Instapundit had a post some time ago about Harvard having to cut expenditures. They started by cutting one of the periodical subscriptions the University Library receives which costs $40,000 a year.

Forty thousand is a big sum of money, to be sure. The periodical is probably useless. But they could save a lot more if they fired a couple of diversity counselors or vice presidents in charge of student sensitivity. Or gender issues. Furthermore, the periodical subscription does not have health benefits, paid leave, or sabbaticals and doesn't hassle anyone. It just sits there quietly, minding its own business and moldering on the shelves, while the administrative personnel are not only useless but troublesome.

E

very time any organization or municipal body needs to save money, they cut the library's budget. Not the salaries of cops who park their patrol cars in the back of the supermarket parking lot in order to take a snooze, or the clerk who has been sitting at her desk quietly doing the crossword puzzle for the last 14 years. That would take work, you would have to ascertain which employees do necessary tasks and which are worthless, and anyway this person is a cousin of the Mayor.

Governor Christie did not cut funding for libraries. What he did was cut funding for municipalities, who then decided that it would be okay for the library to only be open three days a week.