Tag Archives: #SaveIMLS

Advocacy

Advocacy Alert: #SaveIMLS

File:IMLS-logo.jpg

“Last month, library supporters across the country called on their Representatives to sign annual letters of support to the Appropriations Committee urging $186.6 million in federal funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and $27 million for the Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL) in FY 2018. As a result, a record one-third of the entire House of Representatives signed those critical letters!

Now it’s time to keep that rally going in the Senate where our bipartisan champions have delivered their “Dear Appropriator” letters supporting LSTA and IAL to their fellow Senators. That means it’s up to you to:

  • Use the ALA Legislative Action Center to contact the offices of both of your U.S. Senators by email, tweet or phone (or all three!).
  • Ask them to “sign the FY18 LSTA and IAL Dear Appropriator letters.“
  • Ask everyone you know who values libraries to take action, too. Your staff, governing and advisory boards, volunteers, vendors, Friends, foundation members and patrons all can help keep LSTA and IAL funding from being eliminated or slashed.
  • Check up on your Senators! Use our easy tracking tool and, if you don’t see your Senator listed as a signator of the LSTA and/or IAL Dear Appropriator letters, ask them again to sign on right away.

Able to do a bit more? Check out Fight for Libraries! to tell us your story of how federal funding makes a difference in your library so we can tell strategically retell it to Members of Congress, and participate in National Library Legislative Day online on May 1.

Send an Email  Make a Call  Send a Tweet

Need more background information? Visit our previous posts on this topic or watch our most recent webinar.”

Advocacy, CMLE, Communication

Join Us: Postcard Party in the Park!

Clemens Gardens

Are you ready for spring and beautiful flowers?

Do you love talking about libraries?

Us too!!

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. Continue reading Join Us: Postcard Party in the Park! →

Advocacy, Books

Send Librarians to Congress – in book form!

Some advocacy to help our legislators know more about libraries!

Donate here!

“Help us send librarians to congress by taking part in the campaign to send a copy of the book, “This is What a Librarian Looks Like,” by Kyle Cassidy, to every member of Congress.

Federal funding for libraries would be eliminated in the proposed “Skinny Budget” from President Trump. Many of our elected representatives are unaware of the work that librarians do for millions of Americans every day. We need to show Congress that librarians are providing critical services for communities and teach Congress about the impact that librarians’ work has in our big cities and small towns. Librarians come from all walks of life, backgrounds, and society, but what they have in common is a passion for learning, innovation, and making sure that knowledge is available, free of charge, and accessible to everyone. Libraries are not just rooms filled with books; they provide computers, cameras, kayaks and fishing equipment, 3D printers, recording studios, video games, and even neckties for people who aren’t able to get access anywhere else. This is the message that members of Congress need desperately to hear and you can help us raise the money we need to reach them.

Tell congress about the work that librarians do in the United States by helping us raise money to send them Kyle Cassidy’s book, This is What A Librarian Looks Like by May 9th.

Through his book, Kyle Cassidy has made it his mission to remind us of how essential librarians and libraries are to our communities. His subjects are men and women of all ages, backgrounds, and personal style–from pink hair and leather jackets to button-downs and blazers. The nearly 220 librarians photographed also share their personal thoughts on what it means to be a librarian. What A Librarian Looks Like also includes original essays by some of our most beloved writers, journalists, and commentators including Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Nancy Pearl, Cory Doctorow, Paula Poundstone, Amanda Palmer, Peter Sagal, Jeff VanderMeer, John Scalzi, Sara Farizan, Amy Dickinson, and others. Cassidy also profiles a handful of especially influential librarians and libraries.”

Advocacy

Top 10 things to know (and do) about saving library funding

Fight For Libraries! Tell Congress to save library funding.

From the ALA District Dispatch:

The talk of Washington and the library community (when people aren’t talking about the President’s tweets, anyway) is the recent recommendation by the President to completely eliminate funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), including their library funding implementing the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and the Innovative Approaches to Literacy program within the Department of Education. Here are the top ten things that you need to know about saving IMLS and more than $210 million in annual federal library funding that will be going on all year.

10. Exactly how much money are we talking about?

LSTA received $183.4 million in FY 2016 while IAL received $27 million. These funding levels are essentially the same for FY 2017 as the year before because Congress failed to enact almost any of the twelve individual appropriations bills that fund specific parts of the federal government and is keeping the governments doors open under a series of temporary authorizations called Continuing Resolutions, or “CRs” in Beltway-speak. Under the terms of a CR, programs are funded at the previous year’s levels (though this year the CR includes a de minimus across the board cut of less than 0.5%). If Congress returns from its upcoming April recess on April 24 and figures out how to pass 11 of the 12 unfinished FY 2017 appropriations bills in less than a week, funding levels for FY 2018 could change. However, that narrow window for Congressional action makes another CR running through the end of the current fiscal year (September 30, 2017) vastly more likely. Continue reading Top 10 things to know (and do) about saving library funding →

Advocacy

Take Action for Libraries Day to launch during National Library Week

ALA, library community, advocates, call on nation’s leaders to safeguard IMLS funding

CHICAGO – Libraries of all types are part of a delicate ecosystem that supports the transformation of communities and lives through education and lifelong learning. From the cradle to the grave, libraries provide invaluable resources that serve as a lifeline for billions of users for access to technology, early and digital literacy instruction, job-seeking resources, social services and small business tools.

During National Library Week April 9 – 15, The American Library Association (ALA) will launch Take Action for Libraries Day, a national library advocacy effort observed for the first time on the Thursday of National Library Week, April 13.

In response to President’s Trump proposed budget cuts, this year’s Take Action for Libraries Day will highlight the library community’s efforts to safeguard funding for the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which serves as a critical funding resource for every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories to support libraries and museums. IMLS funding helps support literacy programs for youth, small business service centers, services for veterans and technological resources and services like 3-D printers.

Continue reading Take Action for Libraries Day to launch during National Library Week →