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It's the only one of its kind in the country - and therein lies the rub for the media lab at the Southdale-Hennepin Area Library in Edina.
For 22 years, the lab has grown to provide free services for transferring film to video, transferring old photos to slides, dubbing tapes, sound recordings and graphics.
But library officials have decided the $150,000 a year spent for the lab could be put to better use and have announced they will close it on Sept. 1.
Scores of citizens - including outraged lab users from Ramsey, Dakota, and Carver counties - who pay no taxes to support the Hennepin County library - are angry, sending letters and making phone calls.
They have crowded meetings of the Hennepin County Library Board, which recently held three hours of public hearings on the issue. Several members of the Hennepin County Board, which oversees the Library Board, have received more calls about the media lab than they have about welfare reform.
The demise of the tiny lab is a classic example of Minnesota quality-of-life programs meeting the harsh realities of tighter budgets in an anti-big-government atmosphere.
"After the media lab closes, does this mean we are going to regress to what other states do - to mediocrity?" asked lab supporter Sande Rud.
Desperate for someone to hear their concerns, a few media lab supporters approached the County Board on...