Remarks at Southern New Hampshire
University
Manchester, New Hampshire
Dr. Anne-Imelda M. Radice
August 6, 2007
Thank you, Mr. Finlay, for such a kind introduction.
I am honored to be here in such lovely surroundings,
and in the company of so many leaders, who care so deeply
about their communities around the state.
This may well be the only place in the Granite State
where someone from Washington is not asking you for
your votes.
Rather, I offer my deepest gratitude and compliments
for the outstanding work you are doing up here.
Before I begin, I would like to extend my thanks to
President LeBlanc and the leadership here at Southern
New Hampshire University for your gracious hospitality.
What began as a respectable business school here has
blossomed into an all-around educational experience…
one that is emblematic of the forward thinking we see
emerging from New Hampshire.
I would like to thank Christiana Thornton from Senator
Sununu’s office for coming today.
My colleague, Michael York, of course, needs no introduction
for the outstanding work he is doing as the state librarian.
I would also like to recongize former National Museum
and Library Services board member Nancy Dwight.
And last, but certainly not least, I would like to
thank and recognize a person of great talent and heart,
Rob Finlay… whom I will be attempting to kidnap
and spirit back to Washington if I can.
Rob, of course, is a distinguished graduate of Southern
New Hampshire University, and his successes as a business
leader are certainly worthy of celebration.
But it has been his leadership and unflagging advocacy
on behalf of children, education, and the disadvantaged
that have set him apart as a leading light among his
peers.
Rob’s commitment to community is as wide as it
is deep, from donating a fireboat to the Peterborough
Fire and Rescue Association… to his close involvement
with Friends of Forgotten Children, an important effort
about which you will hear more in the near future. He
also plays a major role as a board member of the New
Hampshire Higher Education Assistance Foundation, the
state’s largest source of college funding for
more than 40 years, providing some $184 million in low
interest college loans last year.
These are but a few of the philanthropic endeavors in
which Rob is involved, and through which he will continue
to make a substantial difference across the state.
Young leaders like Rob Finlay are a great source of
encouragement to all of us in this room who care about
the legacy we leave to the next generation.
The road ahead, to be sure, is challenging.
It is no mystery that we live in an age when technology,
the job market, and demands on our personal lives constantly
alter the landscape upon which we operate.
Each day, new developments impact the time and interest
Americans are willing invest in their museums and libraries.
We have all seen the studies and the news stories.
Young Americans more than ever are turning to the convenience
of the Internet as their tool of choice for research
and homework. More Americans than ever are favoring
their credit cards over their library cards to scoop
up books or download them off of their computers. And
more college students than ever, offered the prospect
of higher wages and greater stability, are choosing
business, law, and medicine over a track in the cultural
sector.
For all of us, the challenge is singular, and it is
one of relevance and continued quality.
It is essential that we remain true to our core missions
as educators, custodians, and stewards of our nation’s
heritage. It is equally important that we remain connected
and relevant to our communities’ needs by offering
programs that innovate, engage and inspire a lifelong
love of learning.
Andrew Carnegie said it best: “There is not such
a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public
Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank,
office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”
The same can certainly be said for museums and archives,
the repositories of our national story.
But while all of us know that our institutions are
essential building blocks for education and citizenship,
it will be up to us to be introspective, to adapt, to
recognize our uniqueness, and to show our communities
that this continues to be the case.
Our focus must be four-fold.
Let us be realistic. None of these are challenges that
can be surmounted overnight. They require time, planning,
and resources.
But they are very achievable. And I am proud to say
that much of the work is already under way… both
through programs IMLS is implementing, and through some
of the outstanding things you are accomplishing up here
in the Granite State.
Very briefly, I would like to tell you about a few national
efforts we have put into action that are helping museums
and libraries tackle these challenges.
The first program, called the Big Read, is a partnership
launched last Fall with the National Endowment for the
Arts to address the national decline in literacy.
The Big Read encourages literacy by asking communities
to come together to read and discuss one classic American
novel. All communities are welcome to apply for these
grants, and already we have reached nearly 200 cities
nationwide.
In fact, New Hampshire is the first state to launch
a statewide Big Read, thanks to Mike York and Mary Martin
Russell of the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire
State Library.
Nearly 40 towns across the Granite State alone are
reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and discussing
its historic, cultural, civic and political implications.
Another program worth highlighting is Webwise, which
each year brings together 400 of the brightest minds
in the museum, library and technology fields to explore
new digital solutions to everyday challenges.
This annual conference has become so popular, so productive,
and so widely requested that we just last month began
offering a free publication of the proceedings, projects,
speeches and demonstrations through our website.
Another recent launch, of which I’m quite proud,
is a nationwide effort called Connecting to Collections,
designed to help museums and libraries safeguard their
most cherished treasures for future generations.
More than 400 representatives from small and mid-size
institutions – including professionals from Laconia,
Peterborough, Portsmouth and Concord – attended
our kickoff summit in Washington in June.
There, they were connected to experts in the areas
of digital technology, partnership-building, emergency
preparedness, and conservation techniques.
A national tour of this initiative will begin next
year, and 2,000 institutions will receive a special
collection of books, DVDs, and wall charts that cover
the philosophy, ethics, and handling of living and non-living
collections.
Finally, one last effort I am thrilled to spotlight
is our 21st Century Museum and Library Professionals
programs.
Both of these grant programs were created to build
the next generation of professionals. And with grants
of up to $1 million, they are helping to develop faculty
leaders, recruit new professionals from college and
high school, enhance knowledge about new practices,
and build institutional capacity in graduate schools
for these fields.
All of these are programs of which I am extremely proud.
But they are not the entirety of the effort, nor are
they the sole domain of IMLS in Washington.
No, the future of our work and our ability to serve
our communities is one often best determined and executed…
by you.
There is a descriptor in the Granite State known as
the “New Hampshire Way,” and it is meant
to illustrate the independence, individualism, and fierce
commitment to community that is unique to this state.
Over the years, your vision and creativity have sparked
programs that have made lasting impact on your communities.
We have been honored to help when we can.
The Children’s Museum of Portsmouth, for instance,
has used a grant to create a portable free museum for
underserved communities throughout the region. This
program, called Museums to You, provides eye-catching
exhibits, performances, workshops and educational programs
free-of-charge in areas where they are not readily accessible.
In Canterbury, the Canterbury Shaker Village has used
a grant to digitize more than 8,000 historic photographs,
so that visitors can enjoy thematic virtual exhibits,
as well as an online digital database.
In Belknap, the Belknap Mill Society has used a grant
to upgrade its own digital presence, by developing an
interactive Web site to help teach industrial history
to fourth grade students.
And in Concord, the New Hampshire Historical Society
has used a grant to create a single, Web-based library
and museum catalog for public use.
And then there are the countless conservation projects
– the barns, mills, quilts, recordings, paintings,
and gardens that form the exquisite tapestry of our
experience as Americans. All provide a window to our
past, and a looking glass to the future.
By conserving them, they remain a vital source of knowledge
to families, children, teachers, and adults for decades
to come.
So much of what all of us do at our core is about education;
about helping kids and their families get ready for
school, and about helping to spark a lifelong love of
learning.
It is about making certain that visitors, young and
old, are valued by libraries and museums, and, in turn,
value them.
No well-ordered society can exist without educated
and thoughtful citizens, without a sense of goodness
and moral purpose, and without a knowledge of its place
in the world and in history.
At a time when civic and cultural literacy are in decline,
our role must be to give our visitors the tools they
need as citizens, as students of art and literature,
and as the torch-bearers of our democratic tradition.
Our communities deserve no less.
The people of New Hampshire have a wonderful system
of libraries and cultural institutions. And it is going
to get better under the leadership of the outstanding
librarians and curators who work in the Granite State.
So how do you leverage these assets?
Permit me to challenge every librarian in the state
to recruit at least 50 new visitors in the coming year
to their location. If this could be done, New Hampshire
would include 34,250 new library patrons in the state.
Rob Finlay has offered a striking suggestion to help
make this happen. Today, it gives me great pleasure
to announce that Rob Finlay has pledged $25,000 per
library and museum to the 3 libraries or museums that
do the best job in the coming year to bring new patrons
into their facilities. The details of how this will
happen will be announced in a few weeks.
Rob Finlay has done this because he believes in innovation
and incentives. Well, $75,000 is sure an incentive.
And all of us should and will learn from the innovation
that librarians and curators/directors in New Hampshire
use to attract people to their facilities.
I intend to closely follow the imagination of New
Hampshire librarians and the innovations of its museums
and include their thoughts and actions in the national
effort we have underway to acquaint more people with
libraries and cultural institutions across the United
States.
In a note to James Madison in 1787, Thomas Jefferson
instructed: “Educate and inform the whole mass
of the people... They are the only sure reliance for
the preservation of our liberty.”
I am proud to come to New Hampshire and see firsthand
programs that are succeeding in doing just that –
and doing it “The New Hampshire Way.”
You have made, and will continue to make, a profound
contribution to the cultural life of the nation which
makes our work possible. And on behalf of the Institute
of Museum and Library Services, I thank and salute you.
Thank you.
