[Publib] ALA and Funding

Fri Feb 20 10:21:59 EST 2009

I'm not sure that Michael's election to Council will constitute a "massive project"....  Lol    But I am with you on the massive projects especially when it comes to broadband in rural areas of the country.  Here in Illinois we have Illinois Century Network linking hundreds of academic and public libraries with a low cost, state subsidized Internet service.  We pay "peanuts" for our ISP at OLPL and have been able to upgrade our line to the ICN to fiber optic and our internal backbone to copper and lines to Cat6.  Every PL should get the same fast response time.  Even our wireless users can sit outside of the Library in their cars and get faster response time than they can at home or at any other library in our area.  --- Illinois is less in need of broadband than we are library construction.  Scattered throughout Illinois we have some 650 public libraries --  several times more than California, Texas, etc...  Most are so small that they should be branches.

From: Karen Schneider [mailto:kgschneider at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 8:31 AM
To: James Casey
Cc: Michael Golrick; publib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Publib] ALA and Funding

Well, what about massive projects (and oh yes, voting for Michael Golrick for Council is a given for me)?

What about building an ILL infrastructure?

What about massive book repositories?

Etc.

Karen
On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 9:09 AM, James Casey <jcasey at olpl.org<mailto:jcasey at olpl.org>> wrote:

I heard on the radio this morning that Illinois may be getting $8.8 billion in stimulus money.  I sure would like to see a mere $10 million or so go into public library construction grant projects.

There are so many small public libraries in our state that cannot even afford to have a single full time staff person (let alone an MLS librarian) that finding money at the local level for capital improvements is all but impossible.  Nevertheless, who can continue library service in a building with a leaky roof, dead HVAC and ripped up carpets?  The need for capital expenditure on our library buildings is HUGE.  ---- Having been on the State Library's Construction Grant Review Sub-Committee since 1999, I've seen hundreds of grant proposals from libraries that might just as well shut their doors if the state funding isn't received.   And then, of course entire townships, villages, and even counties would be without a functioning public library.

By the way, I am voting for Michael Golrick for re-election to ALA Council.  He has done a great job for us.

James B. Casey - My own views

Director of Oak Lawn Public Library

ALA Council Member since 1996

From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org<mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org> [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org<mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org>] On Behalf Of Michael Golrick
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 3:45 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org<mailto:publib at webjunction.org>
Subject: [Publib] ALA and Funding

Hi-

I was reminded in the conversation about federal funding for libraries, that the re-authorization of IMLS and LSTA are scheduled for this session of Congress. These are critical sources of funding, and while construction was taken out sometime in the '90s, LSTA funding provides for many critical services provided by state libraries, and also provides (in some states) the opportunities to try new things.

Funding has never been at the authorized level. For some reason Congress does not understand that if the funding were closer to the authorized level, a new formula would kick in and EVERY state would receive more money (often significant for libraries).

So, when the ALA Washington Office asks....call your federal legislators. Your state library can tell you how the funds are spent in your state.

Michael Golrick
mailto:michael.golrick at gmail.com<mailto:michael.golrick at gmail.com>

ALA Councilor-at-Large, Candidate for ALA Council 2009 (Please vote for me)

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