Massachusetts Vital Records Research Room Cuts Hours Dramatically

As I’ve been saying for some time now, the recession is most likely going to make it tough for us to do research in publicly financed facilities – especially those funded by state or federal funds. The latest example is the cutting of research room hours at the Registry of Vital Records in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Dick Eastman reported yesterday that The Massachusetts Department of health has announced that they are cutting the hours in the research room. Just 11 hours a week will now be available for research. Following is the notice posted on the Massachusetts Health and Human Services website.

Notice
Due to restrictions in our budget and staffing reductions, we will be reducing our research room hours effective february 23, 2009. New research room hours will be:

  • MONDAY: 2:00pm – 4:30pm
  • TUESDAY: 9:00am – 12:00pm
  • WEDNESDAY: NO RESEARCH HOURS
  • THURSDAY: 2:00pm – 4:30pm
  • FRIDAY: 9:00am – 12:00pm

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Eastman has a lot more information on this in his post, as well as a “fill-in-the-blanks” letter of protest in his blog.

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