500 signatures reached
To: The acting State Library Victoria executive leadership, and The Hon. Colin Brooks MP, Minister for Creative Industries
Hands off our State Library!
The acting State Library Victoria management are rushing dozens of changes to library operations that will degrade and diminish core library services. These will gut the reference library staff (from 21 down to 10) and replace them with “self service” options; and pour taxpayer money into expensive “digital innovation” projects and “experiences” that few people use.
Nobody is against innovation or tech in our libraries – we are against the gutting of core services and people, and replacing them with unspecified tech modifications without any clear plan or benefit for the Victorian community. AI cannot do what our highly skilled library staff can. Cutting them will make it harder to engage with the collection and reduce access to experienced help, and overload those remaining.
We call on the Minister and acting State Library Victoria executive leadership to withdraw any proposed changes and hold a public meeting , where Victorians can have a say in how their library is run.
Why is this important?
Library workers deliver essential services to 2.8 million people in our community each year. They run information services, connect people online, hold free workshops, develop community connections and foster a safe space for people experiencing homelessness and family violence, and deliver services for children and families.
The State Library's expertise in family history research and access to heritage collections are also under direct threat.
Executives are trying to cut 11 permanent librarian positions, meaning 10 frontline librarians would remain to run Australia's busiest library.
They are also cutting essential Visitor Service Officer, Children and Families officers, plus other frontline roles, and proposing to outsource the library's critical information technology team.
Frontline library staff are the vital link to the library's 5 million items, and librarians are experts in connecting anyone with the information they need, taking more than 50,000 questions and enquiries annually.
Library Executives are also planning to remove public PCs, and visitors will have to order collection items via an "automated system".
Meanwhile, millions of taxpayer dollars are proposed to be spent on deceptive and ill-aligned "digital" roles, pay rises for executives, and flashy websites with no substance.
State libraries with free, uncensored access to information are essential to our democracy. And in a time of information overload, AI and misinformation, we need librarians more than ever.
We need librarians in libraries.
To foster critical thinking skills, to know the stories of where we live, and to navigate an online world increasingly full of falsehoods and manipulation, places like the State Library are essential. Victoria’s State Library should serve the public interest. It must not be allowed to neglect its core purpose of preserving and providing easy access to knowledge. We reject these inept attempts to shift control of our cultural memory, our history and our factual record to private vendors and ill-conceived digital systems.
Tell the acting executives: hands off our State Library!