Hill Library Takes Deep Cuts, Admits No Defeat

Last Thursday we all got together for an employee meeting here at the James J. Hill Reference Library. The fallout from that meeting, and the Hill Library Board’s long discussions leading up to it, were published in an article this morning in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. The Hill Library is making cuts. Pretty deep cuts, too. Nine excellent employees - which is a quarter of our total staff – have been laid off, including four top-notch librarians. Those four librarians have something like seventy years of combined experience here at the Hill Library. A dark day, indeed.

We don’t know exactly what our mission will be for the long term. The Board is still sorting that out. For now, though, we’ll continue to do what we have been doing: Providing business research and reference service to small businesses and entrepreneurs, and those organizations that support them.

We’ll continue to offer HillSearch, our premium business database package. We’ll continue to maintain the Biz Info Library, a collection of free articles on various business topics. We’ll continue to support the BizToolkit, a collection of the best free business research Web sites. And we’ll continue to help businesses find the credible information they need in order to thrive. That, for sure, won’t change. Give us a call or send us an email if you have a business research question. We might be a little down this week, but we’re always willing to help. 

Look for a press release from the Library in the next couple of days with more official background and explanation. And thanks for your continued use of our resources. It is very much appreciated.
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Allen and Matt.