I briefly attended the ALA town hall discussion where topics of concern were brought up by ALA members and will be passed on to the Barack Obama Administration.’ ALA President Jim Rettig, the Chair of the Legislation Committee, and representatives from the ALA Washington Office staff were there. According to the wiki about the discussion, there were about 259 ALA members and 45 that took to the mics.’ Having qualified librarians in school libraries was a frequently raised issue.
Several school librarians from varying parts of the US came up to the mics that were spread throughout the impressive Four Seasons Ballroom at the Convention Center to voice their concerns about some of the following:
- having a highly qualified school librarian in every school
- funding cuts that are directly affecting school librarians
- lack of resources per child (reading is a right for all)
- wanting a teacher librarian on every education board
- funding for improving literacy through school libraries
- revamping of the No Child Left Behind policy
The AASL blog (American Association of School Librarians) <a href=”“>provides a good overview on information resources for staying up to date on legislative issues affecting libraries. The blog also provides several other recent posts on the topic that are available by searching with the tags, ‘AASL News’ or ‘Advocacy’. There is also a helpful post on ALA and ISTE (International Society for Technology Education) policy statements.
It is not too late to add concerns and topics to the ALA Town Hall Discussion wiki.
