WASHINGTON – Looking to convince Congress that museums across the country need access to a larger funding pool, Maine State Museum Director Joseph Phillips told a Senate panel Wednesday that museums are more vital today than ever before.

“Museums are the new town hall, the community center where people can gather to meet and converse, to celebrate the richness of individual and collective experience,” Phillips told members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday. “We are active, visible players in civic life and we should be.”

Speaking on behalf of the American Association of Museums, Phillips stressed the need to bulk up available federal funding for museums from a present $26.9 million to $80 million.

“Funding is simply not sufficient to meet the needs of the public,” Phillips said, noting that the Maine State Museum receives 100,000 visits a year. Across the nation, the total visits to museums have now surpassed more than 865 million annually, he added.

The Senate hearing was held as part of an effort to renew the Museum and Library Services Act, legislation that was first approved in 1971 to help fund the nation’s public libraries and museums.

During the subsequent three decades, the minimum federal funding for public libraries has been set at $340,000 for each state – a handicap for smaller states. Supporters for boosting that amount say that the level would be $1.5 million if adjusted for the rate of inflation, but they are requesting that the minimum allotment be doubled to $680,000.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, whose first job was as an employee at the public library in Caribou, said she looks forward to finding a way that would help smaller states. “The library, schools and the post office are really the heart of rural communities,” she said. “I’m hopeful we can increase the minimum allocation.”