ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 13, Number 72 October 1, 2004 In This Issue: [1] Carla Hayden, Others to Appear on Book TV Protesting PATRIOT Act [2] Congress Passes Resolution to Fund Government until November 20th [1] Carla Hayden, Others to Appear on C-SPAN's Book TV Protesting PATRIOT Act On Saturday, October 2, at noon EST, C-SPAN's Book TV will broadcast a press conference held last week during which ALA Past President Carla Hayden joined the Presidents of other book groups as part of the "Campaign for Reader Privacy." The event will air again on Sunday, October 3, at 8:30 a.m. EST. On Wednesday, September 29th, ALA, along with the American Booksellers Association, Association of American Publishers, and PEN American Center delivered to Congress more than 170,000 signatures gathered in protest of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) received the petitions. Salman Rushdie (President of PEN American Center), former U.S. Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (President of the Association of American Publishers), Mitchell Kaplan (President of the American Booksellers Association), and Carla Hayden (past President of the American Library Association) presented the petitions on behalf of readers, writers, librarians, booksellers, and publishers at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol. Don't miss the broadcast of this exciting event! For more information on the broadcast, visit: . [2] Congress Passes Resolution to Fund Government until November 20th With the end of the fiscal year beginning today (October 1) and only one of the 13 annual federal spending bills completed (Defense), Congress passed a Continuing Resolution, also known as a "CR," on Wednesday, September 29th. The CR continues funding for federal departments and agencies at current levels until November 20, 2004. Congress is tentatively set to return to Washington on November 15th for a post-election session where they will continue to work on bills to fund the government in fiscal year 2005. Despite passage of the CR, Congressional leaders expressed hope in completing five more bills - those budgeting money for the Legislative Branch, foreign aid, military construction, and the departments of the Interior and Homeland Security - by the end of next week. There has been no date set for consideration of the Labor-HHS-Education bill, which has jurisdiction over several library programs, by the full Senate. Instead, it is likely that the bill will be combined with other outstanding spending bills into an "omnibus" appropriations package that will be considered after the November elections. The House of Representatives passed the bill on September 9th. The Senate Appropriations Committee passed the bill on September 15th. ALA is urging its members to contact their Senators in support of the funding levels approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee for libraries. ACTION NEEDED: Contact your Senators immediately and ask them to support $223.56 million for Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) programs at the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and $22.842 million for the Improving Literary Through School Libraries program. Visit ALA's website for more information and talking points on these critical programs: Use ALA's Washington Office Legislative Action Center at to identify and email or fax your Members of Congress in both the House and the Senate. You can also call your Member of Congress directly using the U.S. Capitol switchboard at: (202) 224-3121. ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. 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; Carol Ashworth, Don Essex, Joshua Farrelman, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.