ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 15, Number 39 Date: March 15, 2006 In This Issue: Urge Your Members of Congress to Support Federal Funding for Libraries: Deadline for signatures for the House letter is TODAY and we only have 32 signatures so far! This year, we have only 32 Members signing on to the Grijalva-Simmons House letter so far. Funding is extremely tight this year. If the number of signatures on the House letter does not significantly increase, the letter will not be taken seriously, and it will appear as if members of Congress do not care about libraries. If your Member of Congress is not on the House letter, it is critical that you contact them immediately. 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 don't have a lot of protectors out there." Current House signers (32): Reps. Baldwin, Brown, Chandler, Christensen, Conyers, J. Davis, Dingell, Doggett, Ehlers, Etheridge, Hinojosa, Holt, Kind, Larson, Lynch, Maloney, Marshall, Matsui, McCarthy, McCollum, McDermott, McGovern, McNulty, Moore, Nadler, Owens, Reynolds, Ross, Ruppersberger, Schiff, Tauscher, and Watson. Background: 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. Deadline for signing the Senate letter is March 29. Current signers on the Senate letter (7): Sens. Lautenberg, Stabenow, Kennedy, Kerry, Jeffords, Dodd, and Rockefeller. 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 . To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to . ALAWON archives at . 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: . 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.