Just this afternoon, this message was sent to all the librarians in WV on the West Virginia Library Association mailing-list at http://www.wvla.org.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Am I the only person shocked and dismayed by Fred Armstrong’s termination? I certainly hope not. In case you’ve missed it: http://wvgazette.com/section/News/2007110118 What, perhaps, shocks and horrifies me even more is the lack of response from the library community in our state. (I should mention that I heard about his firing from my LISnews listserv last [Tues.] evening.) As we all know, Fred has served not only historians, archivists, genealogists and countless people at Culture & Archives, but I would also bet he’s been of service to just about every public & academic library in the state. I do not know whether he is a current or lifetime member of WVLA, or even hasn’t ever been a member, and I think that would be beside the point. The fact is that what happened to Fred strikes at the very core of librarianship and what librarians themselves are all about–namely, service in access to information–and for that very reason, we should, I think, have an organizational response denouncing his termination, demanding a rational explanation for his firing rather than the vainglorious “will and pleasure” excuse, and I think an email campaign to the governor or an online petition would show our support. Anyone out there care to respond?

Thanks for listening,

Charley Hively

A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.
— Shelby Foote