Illustration by Louise Leong.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) recently came out with a “top 10” list of wasteful government spending. No. 4 on the list was the $615,000 federal grant given to UC Santa Cruz to digitize the library’s Grateful Dead archive. Although it is important to identify unnecessary costs during this recession, Coburn unfairly singled out UCSC and misrepresented the facts about exactly where the money was going.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) awarded UCSC the federal funds to digitize Grateful Dead “photographs, tickets, backstage passes, flyers, shirts and other memorabilia,” according to Coburn’s list.

This is true, but what Coburn fails to point out is that the digitization that the archives will undergo is an innovative process that earned the title of “National Leadership Project” by the IMLS. This process will also help protect and archive other non-Grateful Dead related texts and literature.

As UCSC librarian Virginia Steel told the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the project received a grant not because of the Grateful Dead but because of the archival digitizing itself.

“The goal is not the digitization of the Grateful Dead Archive but to create a socially constructed archive which allows individuals access to material,” Steel said in the Sentinel. “Then people can help in the identification of materials and also upload their own relevant materials.”

Coburn was wrong to underplay the importance of updating libraries to remain relevant and useful, but there was also a problem with the entire top 10 list: All of the spending projects he identified are discretionary. Discretionary spending goes to different projects every year, which Congress votes on without needing to change any laws.

Non-discretionary spending, on the other hand, includes items like Social Security, Medicare and other expenses that are built into law. The senator undoubtedly created the list in hopes of being seen as a budget hawk — a true fiscal conservative who is serious about reducing spending.

But all of the projects on the list are discretionary spending, which only makes up about a quarter of all government spending.

If Coburn were truly serious about cutting spending, he’d target non-discretionary programs, as well as the huge money suction tubes that are the wars in the Middle East, rather than small library grants. Coburn’s website and political ads bill him as a budget reducer. If he’s serious about that, he should go after substantial amounts of spending, an action which might not be popular in Congress, instead of taking easy shots by demonizing the purportedly wasteful hippies at UCSC. It’s clear the Oklahoma senator cares more about politics than fiscal responsibility.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at Why We’re Not ‘Grateful’ for Tom Coburn

Illustration by Kenneth Srivijittakar.

“The Daily Show” has launched UC Santa Cruz into the public eye. On November 11, Jon Stewart lampooned the McHenry Library’s announcement that they are looking for a Grateful Dead archivist to help organize their massive collection of memorabilia from the acid rock band.

Part of the reason Stewart found the announcement so humorous is the same reason we find it so troubling. The library plans to offer $68,000 for the position. That’s right. $68,000 a year to have various posters, t-shirts, set lists and other items organized into a comprehensive and properly archived collection.

Much of the funding for the Grateful Dead archive comes from private sources, but the University has put the archive at far too high of a priority. On Sept. 29, UCSC’s Public Information Office celebrated a $615,000 grant to the collection. Meanwhile, the McHenry librarians are concerned about a cumulative 28 percent budget reduction that began in fall 2008 and will continue into June 2011.

The administration encourages people to donate and help the Grateful Dead archive grow. We want to see that level of support for other programs, departments, classes and lecturers that are routinely threatened to be placed on the chopping block. This is not the time to be adding a new salaried position for archiving when many faculty members are seeing their salaries dwindle under a difficult furlough plan.

The $68,000 archiving salary is not our main concern, however. Our main concern is what it represents: the misdirection of a school that does not prioritize the needs of its students. It is about the the construction on the McHenry Library that began in 2007 and chugs along even as the library takes away more hours. When it comes down to it, students would rather have a library that’s open than one that is “state of the art.”

The University needs to make a greater effort to prioritize the needs of its students. Rather than trying to “wow” the world with an extensive collection of rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia, we need to encourage donors to better support the things that make college intellectually stimulating, enriching, worthwhile and affordable.

If the rapid deterioration of the University continues, the student body will turn into the walking un-Grateful Dead, only able to admire the enthralls of a library from outside locked doors.

But at least we will have a well-organized rock band archive.

---- (C) 2011 City on a Hill Press. All Rights Reserved. View online at The Grateful Who?