Today’s guest on The Empty Office Podcast is librarian Steve Rollins, who recently retired as the Dean of the University of Alaska Anchorage Consortium Library. In December, Rollins was named the Dean Emeritus of the UAA/APU Consortium Library after leading the library since 1998.

During today’s episode, Steve Rollins details the cuts to library services across the state made necessary by Governor Dunleavy’s repeated vetoes to funding approved by the Alaska State Legislature. In June of last year, Governor Dunleavy vetoed $758,000 in capital budget funding that Senator Tobin successfully included in the FY 2025 budget for the Statewide Library Electronic Doorway (SLED) program. That veto and previous vetos have resulted in the loss of many online resources used by school districts and homeschool families across the state.

The music used for this episode of The Empty Office Podcast is the song Black Santa, performed by Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds.

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