Cuts in Library Budget Draw Protest

Readers’ rights and budget cuts clashed at the Library of Congress on Monday when a group staged a sit-in in the main reading room to protest new early closing hours forced by the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law.

About 100 people, many wearing black armbands, participated in the protest on the first day of the 5:30 p.m. weekday closing hours. For 89 years the library has remained open until 9:30 p.m. on weekdays.

The grand library, across the street from the U.S. Capitol, will continue to be open until 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday nights. But due to sharp budget cuts, it will now close on Sundays for the first time since Sunday hours were inaugurated in 1902.

The peaceful protesters refused to leave the ornate, high-domed reading room at 5:30 p.m. Library officials made no attempt to have them ejected. They said they planned to sit and read.

Nancy Bush, a library information officer, said, “Nobody will be forcibly removed” from the building and the library had decided to let the protesters remain until the old closing hour. The protesters vowed to do that and come back on subsequent days until the Administration reinstates the old hours and changes what they said were “upside down priorities.”