Ah, Spring! Flowers are blooming, the weather is finally grudgingly warming up…and at ALSC, planning is well under way for National Library Legislative Day. On May 4-5, library advocates from across the United States will travel to Washington, D.C. to raise awareness of issues librarians hold near and dear to our hearts.<\/p>\n
Of particular interest to ALSC members is the advocacy that is being done on behalf of school libraries. As the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions works on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA–the rebranded No Child Left Behind Act), ALA is pushing for amendments that will mandate effective library programs in every school. In other words, by federal law, every student will have access to a school library that is staffed by a certified librarian, equipped with up-to-date materials and technology, and enriched by a curriculum jointly developed by the school\u2019s librarian and teachers. Another push is for legislation that will permit state program funds to be used to recruit and train school librarians.<\/p>\n
In addition, ALA is supporting the President\u2019s budget request of $186.6 million for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and maintaining the fiscal year 2015 level of funding ($25 million) for Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL), a grant program for school libraries. Half of all IAL funding provides school library materials to low-income communities, while LSTA is used to target library services to people of many geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, to disabled individuals, and to people with limited literacy skills.<\/p>\n
Clearly, these are important causes. I would like to say that if I knew my presence in Washington, D.C. could guarantee an effective school library in every school in the country, I would start walking that way right now. And while I won\u2019t actually be able to make it this year, I know that I can be there in spirit, and that my voice will be heard, thanks to the power of Virtual Legislative Day. Very soon, a toolkit will be ready that will enable you to participate in Legislative Day from your computer keyboard. Keep an eye on the Everyday Advocacy<\/a> site, where, in the next day or two, you\u2019ll be able to find templates for writing your representatives and senators, talking points so that you can call your representatives and senators, and ready-to-post social-media messages, all in one easy-to-use package.<\/p>\n *******************************************************************<\/p>\n Today’s post was written by Eileen Makoff, a librarian at P.S. 90 Edna Cohen Schoo<\/a>l in Brooklyn, for the Advocacy and Legislative Committee<\/a> of ALSC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ah, Spring! Flowers are blooming, the weather is finally grudgingly warming up…and at ALSC, planning is well under way for National Library Legislative Day. On May 4-5, library advocates from across the United States will travel to Washington, D.C. to raise awareness of issues librarians hold near and dear to our hearts. Of particular interest to ALSC members is the advocacy that is being done on behalf of school libraries. As the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions works on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA–the rebranded No Child Left Behind Act), ALA is pushing for amendments that will mandate effective library programs in every school. In other words, by federal law, every student will have access to a school library that is staffed by a certified librarian, equipped with up-to-date materials and technology, and enriched by a curriculum jointly developed by the school\u2019s librarian and teachers….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[270,58,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-advocacy-and-legislation-committee","category-legislative-issues","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}