In an effort to strengthen library and museum services across the nation, Senator Jack Reed introduced the Museum and Library Services Act of 2017 (MSLA) along with Senators Collins, Cochran, Gillibrand and Murkowski. This legislation, introduced on Dec. 22nd, would reauthorize the Institute of Museum and Library Services. For this legislation to succeed, there needs to be a grassroots effort from citizens to encourage their Senators to support it. Please take a minute to email or call your Senators and ask them to cosponsor S. 2271, and encourage your friends, family, colleagues, and library’s advocates to do the same. Ready to use talking points and email templates available on the ALA site. Read More →
Please contact the office of your Representative in the House and ask them to sign on to the “dear appropriator” letters for two critical pieces of library funding: the Library Services Technology Act (LSTA) and Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL). Please share this widely and encourage your colleagues, coworkers, friends and family to contact the offices of their Reps as well. This is an extremely tough budget year, and without huge grassroots support (i.e. thousands of voters contacting Congress), the nation’s libraries will lose this critical funding. The deadline to sign the letter is April 3.
- Go here to contact your Rep’s office: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home –ready to use messages are waiting for you!
- To learn more about the issue, read this ALA blog post
Thank you for all that you do to support teens and libraries!
-Beth Yoke
P.S. If you’ve been trying by phone to reach your Rep and the lines are busy, try Resistbot instead
Over the next several weeks, Congress is working on a new federal education bill. Now is the time to activate your library friends and supporters and get them to speak up for school libraries! The last education bill, No Child Left Behind, did not specifically include school libraries, and as a result students suffered because schools closed libraries, cut library budgets, or eliminated staff positions. Right now we have a window of opportunity to right that wrong and help America’s youth. Congress needs to hear from as many people as possible about the importance of school libraries in supporting youth success. Provided below are two ready-to-use messages you can share out with your library supporters. Please do so today!
SAMPLE EMAIL, NEWSLETTER ITEM OR FACEBOOK POST
Studies show that strong school libraries drive student achievement. They help young people succeed in school and prepare for college, careers and life. Congress is currently working on a new education bill that would provide federal funding for the nation’s schools. They need to hear from you that it’s vital to include school libraries in this new bill. Your calls, emails and Tweets will be the evidence Congress needs to take action for America’s youth and ensure school libraries adequately funded in the ESEA reauthorization.
Here’s how you can ensure that happens:
- Go here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home
- In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your member of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
- Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit. The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
- Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
- Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!
For more information, read this blog post from ALA. Thank you for speaking up for youth and libraries!
SAMPLE TWEET
kids need #SchoolLibraries! ow.ly/Sf4lT -contact Congress 2 ask 4 support 4 school libs via this easy site ow.ly/S0kdw
Thank you,
Beth Yoke
Last week we called on library staff and advocates to contact Congress to support school libraries, and many of you responded (yay!)! So far, there have been 2,971 emails, 446 Tweets and 39 phone calls. That’s great, but with over 98,000 school libraries and 17,000 public libraries in the U.S. we can do better! ALA staff are meeting with key Congressional staff later this week to ask for support for school libraries. Right now we need one final push from library staff and advocates so that when ALA meets with Congressional staff your grassroots support will be the evidence Congress needs to take action for school libraries and ensure they’re adequately funded in the ESEA reauthorization.
Here’s how you can make sure that happens:
- Go here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home
- In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your members of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
- Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit. The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
- Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
- Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!
For more information, read this blog post from ALA.
Thank you,
Beth Yoke
The Senate is working on a new education bill (aka ESEA reauthorization) right now, and it’s vital that they include school libraries! You can help ensure that happens:
- Go to this web page
- In the blue bar in the upper half of the page, choose how you want to contact your members of Congress: letter, Tweet, or phone call
- Click on the option(s) you want, provide the required contact info, & submit. The letter and Tweet are pre-written for you, so it’s super easy! (but you do have the option to customize them if you want)
- Forward this message to library advocates in your community & encourage them to do take action, too
- Pat yourself on the back for a job well done!
For more information, read this blog post from ALA. Thank you for supporting libraries!
-Beth Yoke
Please email or phone your members of Congress and ask them to sign the “Dear Appropriator letter supporting library funding via these two programs: LSTA (Library Services Technology Act) and IAL (Innovative Approaches to Literacy).” Then, ask all other library supporters you know to do the same by no later than March 20th. Contact information for Congress members is here: http://cqrcengage.com/ala/home (just put in your zip code in the box on the lower right side).
To see whether your Members of Congress signed these letters last year, view the FY 2015 Funding Letter Signees document (pdf). If so, please be sure to thank and remind them of that when you email or call! More information can be found on ALA’s blog, District Dispatch. For more information about LSTA, check out this document LSTA Background and Ask (pdf). For more information on IAL, view School Libraries Brief (pdf)
Thank you for taking this step to ensure that our nation’s teens continue to have access to library staff and services that will help them succeed in school and prepare for college and careers!
-Beth Yoke
As the stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, goes through the approval process in the House and Senate, it is important that we contact our federal Representatives and Senators to let them know how important it is for libraries to be included.’ ALA has made it easy for us to be active in our profession and advocate to include funds for public libraries: http://capwiz.com/ala/home/
Please take a moment to let those in Washington know the important services we provide for our patrons. Use the ALA Legislative Action Center to keep informed about future calls for action and be ready to respond.
Last week, the House Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee held a hearing “to obtain testimony on the nature and growth of online virtual worlds; the types of applications and services, both commercial and non-commercial, supported and offered in such worlds; and any policy issues raised by virtual worlds that may need to be addressed or monitored.” The entire audio recording is available here and the transcript will soon be available here. While the representatives of the virtual world were from Second Life and focused discussion mostly on the adult grid, there was a lot applicable to youth no matter what virtual world, especially in regards to questions Congress is asking and why they are interested in the first place. It’s not all focused on wanting to regulate the space but also to understand what it is being used for.
Acknowledged during the presentation was that with virtual worlds; the possibilities and applications are unlimited, individuals can connect with each other in new and creative ways, the way people and organizations can use the internet is changing, and there is far greater potential to make the real world a better place than with the ‘flat and isolated’ 2D internet.
Some of the issues the subcommittee was concerned about included keeping youth safe, fraud/gambling, addiction, educational, social and business uses, and the need for an abundance of bandwidth. Two of the most interesting comments I thought were that there is actually more of a lack of anonymity-which we might think would be the exact opposite given that our avatar can look like anything we want it to be but because of the strong identities created they are usually sustainable through repeated interactions online. Also, that virtual worlds might in fact be more police able and more maintainable than websites since it is a rigorously self policed (in terms of Second Life and other sites) and can be a staff monitored community in ways that websites can’t. While that is a broad generalization of all virtual worlds and nothing is 100% safe-it is a way to look at the environments many of our youth engage in.
Posted by Kelly Czarnecki
This bill passed the Illinois House of Representatives on May 2. It is now headed toward the Senate. It will affect those under 21 since they will need to request that the filter be removed even for research or other legitimate purpose. For Action Alert and talking points from the Illinois Library Association, read here. For the bill’s full text, see here. For more information, see the Illinois Library Association site.
Posted by Kelly Czarnecki
According to Congressman, Mark Kirk (R-IL). Librarians are out of touch ‘with over 400 members of Congress who are representing the American people.’he stated in a recent interview by SLJ in regards to the revival of DOPA and as posted here by Linda Braun.
I wonder how librarians can be more ‘in touch’ with Mark Kirk and other Congress members that represent the American people. I wonder if we (librarians/Congress members) are really saying the same thing (it is important that we protect our youth) but because we are ‘out of touch’ with each other, we don’t perhaps know what the other is really doing.
Have librarians extended the invitation to a Congressperson to their library to show them the impact they have had on informing the community about various social networking tools (see Sunnyside Teen Council YouTube video).
Have librarians had classes on internet safety for parents and teens? Have librarians had candid dialogue with teens who have been either victims or bullies through using technology as a means to hurt someone? Please share if you have. I think there might be a lot of room for getting in touch with Congress members.
Thank you to SLJ for taking the time to interview a representative of the American people. It gives librarians one more opportunity to respond and speak out to how they positively represent youth in their libraries through social networking.
Posted by Kelly Czarnecki