Tag Archives: save libraries

Advocacy, Resources

Businesses Unite to Fight for Library Funding

(From American Libraries)

“The American Library Association (ALA) hailed the May 17 unveiling of the Corporate Committee for Library Investment (CCLI), a group organized to advocate for federal library funding. Comprising CCLI are more than two dozen leading information, software, publishing, and other businesses as well as multiple national trade associations.

In a May 17 statement, ALA President Julie B. Todaro praised CCLI, saying, “It’s thrilling to see such significant companies and associations across so many industries come together to fight alongside ALA and librarians for federal library funding.” She added that “libraries mean business,” and that working with CCLI can help ensure “that law- and policymakers fully understand American libraries’ tremendous value to communities and economies in every corner of the country.” Continue reading Businesses Unite to Fight for Library Funding →

Advocacy, CMLE, Communication

We are Ready! Join us for the Postcard Party in the Park!

Clemens Gardens

Despite our snow this week, we are getting Spring Fever here at CMLE HQ – and we want to go see flowers and talk libraries. So we are hosting a Postcard Party in the Park, and you are invited! (You, your family, friends, neighbors, polite strangers you met on the street – it’s a very inclusive invitation!)

CMLE HQ will provide postcards and addresses; you can write out quick notes to your stakeholders to tell them about libraries; and we will mail them. Quick and easy advocacy in action!

Thursday, May 18 from 11:00 to 1:00 we will be sitting at tables behind the Gift Shop at the Munsinger Clemens Gardens. Bring your lunch; we will provide snacks, postcards, pens, and addresses for your legislators. Beverages are available for purchase at the Gift Shop, and water fountains are nearby.

After our poll on the best day for this event, we have added a second time. We will also be there from 4:30 to 6:30 that afternoon. Stop by on your way home from work, or bring a sack dinner and enjoy the beautiful gardens, and the river! Snacks and postcards will again be available to everyone who attends. Bring your kids and sweeties, and let them run around the garden while we have library fun! Continue reading We are Ready! Join us for the Postcard Party in the Park! →

Advocacy, CMLE

Contact your Senator’s Office by 5/19 to Support Libraries

Capitol-Senate

Let’s do some advocacy together! Join us for the CMLE Postcard Party in the Park, May 18!

From ALA/YALSA:

“All federal funding for libraries will disappear if Congress accepts Trump’s proposed FY18 budget.  Congress is working on their own version, and we need them to put back in the federal funds for libraries.  Here’s how you can help:

  1. Just 20 U.S. Senators have already signed on to letters of support for federal funding for libraries.  Please find out if your Senator has supported libraries by checking this sortable online tracker
  2. If they have signed on to both FY18 letters, send them a brief thanks.  If they have not, then please call, email, write, fax or Tweet the office of your U.S. Senators. Ready to use messages are here, but you will be asking them to:
    1. Sign on to the Dear Appropriator letter that Sens. Reed and Collins are circulating, which calls for $186.6 million in funding for the Library Services Technology Act (LSTA).
    2. Sign on to the Dear Appropriator letter that Sens. Reed, Grassley and Stabenow are circulating in support of $27 million for Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL).
  3. Check out these other ways you can take action to support libraries
  4. Encourage family, friends, patrons, contractors, vendors, coworkers, etc. to do the same!

Thank you,

-Beth

P.S. if you call your Senator’s office and the line is busy, use Resistbot instead  It’s easy!

Beth Yoke, CAE

Executive Director

Young Adult Library Services Association

50 E. Huron St. Chicago, IL 60611

1.800.545.2433 x4391

fax: 312.280.5276

byoke@ala.org

@yalsa_director

Take action to support funding for teens and libraries: http://bit.ly/2oaiVZD

Advocacy, Public

Mayor Craig Petersen: Library Hero!

 

The Mayor of Logan, UT is a supporter of libraries, and he’s not afraid to put his money where his mouth is – literally!

“Mayor Craig Petersen proposed Friday that he will work without pay for the remainder of the year and donate his salary to the Library Building Fund.

Last month, Petersen recommended to the City Council that a new library and community center be built at the site of the old Emporium building, 55 N. Main St.

New libraries aren’t cheap. The city is looking at a $12 million price tag, but most of that would be paid through existing resources without raising taxes. The remaining $2.8 million would be raised from private donations, including about $93,000 from the mayor’s salary and benefits.

“I want Logan to move forward with a library and a community center Logan can be proud of. And we just don’t have that right now,” Petersen said.”

In a time where too many politicians do not see enough value in libraries to fund them (#SaveIMLS!), it is great to see a Mayor who understands the value a good library will bring to his community!

At CMLE Headquarters, we nominate Mayor Petersen as our latest Library Hero, and we join his community in thanking him for his work on behalf of libraries!