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NOMINATING COMMITTEE our next meeting on November 24th we shall need to form a Nominating Committee to line up nominees for the Annual General Meeting appointments in January, 1994. MEET THE ARCHITECT There will be an open meeting from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 30th in the Peter J. Peters Meeting Room, at which Rick Hulbert, the architect for the Library expansion, will explain the development of the design. ARTIST'S RECEPTION The next reception will take place on November 29th at 7:30 p.m. The artist will be Velvet Bailes. COUNT OUR BLESSINGS • "U.S. LITERACY AND LIBRARIES SUFFER UNDER DEFICIT REDUCTION" This headline appeared in the Weekend Sun on August 21, 1993. Extracts are as follows: Among America's 15,169 public book-lending facilities, thousands of branches are closing or drastically reducing opening hours, cancelling periodicals, almost ceasing to purchase new volumes and dismissing thousands of librarians. Tens of thousands of school libraries have also been hit, as well as great municipal institutions, while famous universities are closing the books on degree courses for new librarians. The root cause is the legacy of Reaganomics, which slashed federal assistance to local authorities - suppliers of 76% of U.S. library funding - in the 1980's. Today, the indifference of politicians and public to the importance of free public access to the printed word is permitting a drastic cultural decline in the U.S. In California, where the recession is the worst in America, Los Angeles county is to close 40 libraries with the loss of 600 jobs. Half the school libraries in California have been shut, and the University of California campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles are to close their library schools .... The Chicago municipal reference library closed last April, abandoning about 20,000 researchers a year. The State of Nevada has eliminated its entire budget for new books and made a third of its total library staff redundant. ....../4