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Critical Action Alert: Public & School Libraries Need Our Help
Please call your congressperson's Washington office today and ask him/her to sign onto two letters circulating around Congress. The first letter your member needs to sign urges the Appropriations Committee to appropriate $100 million to Improving Literacy Through Schools (ILTS) in FY2011. President Obama has consolidated ILTS with five other programs, meaning it would compete with other literacy programs for federal dollars. We cannot let ILTS go without this funding because school libraries are essential to a child's education and ILTS is the only federal source of funding for school libraries.
The second letter your Representative in Congress needs to sign asks the House Appropriations Committee for $300 million for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) in the FY2011 Appropriations bill. The American Library Association's Washington Office has created a chart (pdf) indicating how much your state received for LSTA in FY2010 versus how much your state would receive if LSTA is funded at $300 million. For example, California received $16,971,056 in 2010 and would receive $25,796,264 if LSTA was funded at $300 million. LSTA is the only federal funding for public libraries.
If your representative is a Democrat please ask him/her contact Joseph Mais in Congressman Raul Grijalva's office (at 202-225-2435) to sign these two letters. If your member is a Republican please ask him/her to call Rachel Fenton in Congressman Vernon Ehlers' office (at 202-225-3831) to sign-on.
Furthermore, when you contact your member's office, please explain how important it is that both public libraries and school libraries receive this funding. Tell your member about the critical services your library provides and why it deserves full funding.
If you need to locate your members of Congress, please visit CLA's Capwiz Legislative Action Center and enter your zip code.
Posted on March 9, 2010 2:38 PM | Permalink