ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 11, Number 2
February 4, 2002

In this issue: 


BUSH BUDGET INCREASES SPENDING FOR LIBRARY PROGRAMS; RECRUITMENT-FUNDS SCHOOL LIBRARY MATERIALS AT $12 MILLION

The Administration's FY2003 Budget was released today and includes increases of $13 million for library programs under the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  Last year's funding was $207 million but included a large number of set-asides. The budget de-funds the set-asides from FY2002.   The total for library programs would be set at $182 million.  Also included would be $10 million under the National Leadership Grants program for library professional recruitment.  Statistics gathered by Library Journal in May of 2000 show forty percent of the current library professionals are nearing retirement.

Emily Sheketoff, Executive Director of the American Library Association's Washington Office expressed pleasure at the increase for library programs.  "This increase will allow more libraries to help communities recover from the recession," Sheketoff stated.  "Many libraries in big and small cities provide on-line services for filing resumes and jobs banks for help in finding positions," she said.

Funding for school library materials, recently included in the reauthorized "Leave No Child Behind" ESEA reauthorization, would be set at $12 million, the same level as funding for FY2002.  Unless funds for this program achieve a level over $100 million it does not become a block grant to all states but remains a competitive grant administered by the Department of Education.  

"One of our legislative priorities this year will be to educate Congress on the importance of an increase of funding to make this money available to all states," said Sheketoff.    "In order to have a real impact on young children's reading ability and life-long enjoyment, a big increase in funding will be necessary to update school library collections," she said.  "Since the Administration's focus is on teaching children to read, what is available for them to read is of equal importance, and should be equally funded."

Further ALAWONs will detail additional areas of the FY2003 budget.



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ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Miriam Nisbet and Claudette Tennant. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.