ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 15, Number 37 Date: March 13, 2006 In This Issue: Urge Your Members of Congress to Support Federal Funding for Libraries: Deadline for signatures for the House letter is Wednesday, March 15, and we only have 30 signatures so far! Please contact your Members of Congress today and ask him or her to sign the Representative Grijalva-Representative Simmons letter in the House and the Senator Reed-Senator Collins letter in the Senate that support federal library programs. PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT REP. GRIJALVA, REP. SIMMONS, SEN. REED OR SEN. COLLINS DIRECTLY. INSTEAD, ASK YOUR REPRESENTATIVE'S STAFF TO CONTACT REP. GRIJALVA, REP. SIMMONS, SEN. REED OR SEN. COLLINS' STAFF TO ADD THEIR MEMBER'S SIGNATURE. In both the House and the Senate, Members of Congress are circulating letters of support for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Circulating the letters in Congress are Representative Raśl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Representative Robert Simmons (R-CT) in the House of Representatives, and Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) in the Senate. The letters are addressed to the House and Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriation Subcommittees and requests that the House and Senate include President Bush's request of $220.855 million for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and increased funding for the Improving Literary Through School Libraries program for FY 2007. This year, we have only 30 Members signing on to the letter so far. Funding is extremely tight this year. Programs that don't have a vocal support network are in danger of being cut. In a recent Congressional Quarterly article Rep. Michael Castle (R-NJ) said, " What suffers disproportionately are the smaller programs that doesn't have a lot of protectors out there." With a March 15 deadline for signatures, it is critical that ALA members contact Congress immediately and encourage them to sign these letters. Current signers (30): Reps. Baldwin, Brown, Chandler, Christensen, Conyers, J. Davis, Dingell, Doggett, Ehlers, Etheridge, Hinojosa, Holt, Kind, Larson, Lynch, Maloney, Marshall, McCarthy, McCollum, McDermott, McGovern, McNulty, Moore, Owens, Reynolds, Ross, Ruppersberger, Schiff, Tauscher, and Watson. Deadline for signing the Senate letter is March 29. Use ALA's Washington Office Legislative Action Center at to identify and 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) 225-3121 ****** 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, 1615 New Hampshire Ave., N.W., First Floor, Washington, D.C. 20009-2520; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Don Essex, Melanie Anderson, 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.