Dear ARLIS/NA Members and ARLIS-L Subscribers,

 

Thanks to the efforts of the Public Policy Committee and Roger Lawson, the following letter has been forwarded to the Cologne City Council as an official statement from the Society expressing concern over the proposed closure of the Kunst- und Museumsbibliothek Köln.

 

Also, as previously posted to this list, please remember the online petition in support of the KMB set up by the Art Libraries Society of Flanders/Belgium at:  

 

http://users.pandora.be/okbv/supportKMB/petition.htm

 

TEXT OF LETTER

 

June 25, 2003

 

 

Oberbürgmeister der Stadt Köln

Herrn Fritz Schramma

Rathaus

D50667 Köln

 

Dear Mr. Schramma:

 

I am writing on behalf of the Executive Board of the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) to express our concern and dismay over the proposed closing of the Kunst- und Museumsbibliothek Köln and the redistribution of its resources to other locations.

 

As one of the most important art research collections in Europe and a key participant in the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Kunst- und Museumsbibliothek Köln occupies an essential place in the city’s cultural heritage and a uniquely rich information resource for scholars. The plan to dismantle a well-established, publicly accessible repository disregards thirty years of concerted planning and financial support, and will severely hamper important university, curatorial, and exhibition-related research for years to come. If the city of Cologne is successful in its efforts to be named “cultural capital of Europe” in 2010, this library should stand as one of its treasures.

 

ARLIS/NA fully supports the demands of the “Leserinitiative der KMB Köln” and the position of the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Kunst- und Museumsbibliotheken” and urges the municipal government to abandon plans for closing the library.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

 

Allen K. Townsend

President, ARLIS/NA

 

Allen K. Townsend, President, ARLIS/NA

Librarian

Amon Carter Museum

3501 Camp Bowie Blvd

Fort Worth, Texas 76107

Phone:  817 989 5073

Fax:  817 989 5079

 

All opinions are my own and not those of my employer