The Oregon Historical Society Research Library has closed due to budget cuts. May reopen in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime all employees were laid off and there is no public access to their vast collections.
http://www.ohs.org/The Arizona State Archives has shut down its public services temporarily. They are directly underneath the state legislature as a division which, to my mind, is kind of a scary place these days.
http://www.lib.az.us/archives/I worry that in general cultural and heritage institutions (to use a very broad term) will be too greatly hurt in this economy.
And now this. The Cologne (Germany) city archive building literally collapsed today and is now a big pile of rubble. Actually pulled down two surrounding buildings now, where there are still a couple of people missing. No word on the condition of the records and materials dating back over a 1000 years have fared.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090303/ap_o...It's a fearsome thing, indeed. I heard (though I don't know the specifics) that New Jersey's state archives is also closed indefinitely, due to lack of funding.
