With a sustained national advocacy campaign our first priority, the Libraries Transform public awareness program launched last year. More than 3,000 libraries and supporters have already signed on to be part of the campaign. Last year we saw 144,001 page views of LibrariesTransform.org, 12,387 downloads of the library toolkit, 22,000 #LibrariesTransform mentions on Twitter, 65,000 … Continue reading Advocacy School Is in Session
While collecting information for this document last week, I had the pleasure of visiting a Veterans Resource Center—one of 10 in the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) system—at the LAPL’s Exposition Park branch. Many thanks to LAPL Adult Service Librarian Edwin Rodarte and veteran volunteers Paola Martinez and Veronica Hansel for briefing me and answering … Continue reading Helping Veterans
The US government is spending $1.5 billion on career information and assistance for American workers, job seekers, and employers through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), first implemented in 2013. On Saturday morning at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, the ALA Washington Office brought together a panel of librarians and state workforce experts to show how public libraries can get funding as eligible providers to collaborate with job centers to provide recruitment, digital training, and consultation services to workers who need reemployment—activities that many libraries are already doing for their patrons.
While the American Library Association (ALA) is working in Washington to protect critical library funding, members of Congress respond best when they hear from their constituents. Take a few minutes to call, email, or even tweet your representative and both of your senators to request that they add their names to two letters supporting LSTA … Continue reading Fight Cuts to Library Services
Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law School professor and cofounder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, urged attendees to first define the core purpose of libraries in his “Creativity, Innovation, and Change: Libraries Transform in the Digital Age” presentation. “The book as we know it, as an artifact,” he declared, “is on its way out.” … Continue reading Midwinter 2016 Wrap-Up
All week leading up to the event, this diverse group of stakeholders flooded the web with celebratory tweets using the hashtag #96×20, thanking the Telecom Act for connecting libraries and schools, enabling innovation, and fostering competition. To further highlight the library message about how the Telecom Act, especially the E-Rate Program, has fueled the services … Continue reading Celebrating 20 Years of the Telecommunications Act
It has been a unique and interesting experience living abroad and witnessing firsthand the ways in which information access, technology policy, and digital privacy are closely intertwined with the political process. Following the completion of my fellowship in August 2014, I departed the US for Budapest, Hungary, where I took master’s courses in public policy … Continue reading Around the World in 80 Weeks
Washington Office Executive Director Emily Sheketoff started by noting “how important your voice is in the successes ALA achieves,” specifically citing the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in December. Sheketoff said lawmakers were able to get library-friendly requirements into the bill because ALA members made the effort to call and write to their … Continue reading Washington Office Update
