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State Library demonstrates archival machine, seeks staff funding and increased public-library aid
Summary
State Library Director Lisa Aiken demonstrated a new archival box-making machine and asked for staff and operating funds: conversion of federally funded positions to state funding, new preservation and DISCUS trainer positions, $300,000 to migrate IT services to shared infrastructure, and a $1.2M increase to raise the minimum public-library grant from $150,000 to $200,000.
Lisa Aiken, director of the State Library, demonstrated a newly acquired archival box-making machine and outlined budget requests that she said are needed to preserve the state's collections and to expand services to libraries across South Carolina.
Aiken showed examples of custom acid-free archival boxes made for rare items and DOT/DNR maps and said the machine cost about $200,000–$250,000 after customs and should pay for itself in roughly three years compared with vendor costs. She said the machine allows the agency to protect fragile items (including material dating to the late 1700s) and to produce tailored boxes for unusual formats.
On personnel, Aiken asked to shift several positions from federal grant funding to state funding (covering IT positions, DISCUS trainer positions, reference librarian and a state data coordinator), arguing the roles are primarily state-facing functions and that state funding would provide stability. She also requested additional positions for digitization, preservation and DISCUS outreach as the agency expands services; Aiken said if state positions are not available, the agency will continue using federal dollars but expects less long-term stability.
Aiken described digital archiving efforts: five web crawlers ingest state agency sites nightly, the library holds about 60,000 state documents in its digital depository and had 417,000 page views last year. She cited DISCUS usage up 22% with roughly 29,000,000 full-text retrievals and Tutor.com engagements in the tens of thousands.
On IT and administrative costs, Aiken requested $300,000 to migrate IT infrastructure to shared services (DTO) under proviso 117.017 and noted an $11,000 audit cost tied to a proviso that required a separate p-card audit. For public libraries, she requested increasing the minimum state aid grant from $150,000 to $200,000 (about $1.2 million total) to help small and rural libraries.
Representatives asked about compliance if positions shift from federal to state funding; Aiken said the agency is compliant now and that federal funds could be redirected to grants if positions move to state funding. Committee members raised rural library capacity issues (Dillon County cited) and staffing challenges in small libraries; Aiken recommended adding positions and training and invited members to visit the library's open house.
