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Ad Lib: Advocacy for Libraries

October 26, 2006

ALA Advocacy Has Moved (Again)

Remember back in April when I wrote about ALA’s Legislative Action Center, complete with “current legislation important to ALA, the contact info of your state and federal legislators, and even how to contact your local media to speak out about these issues”? Well, you can ignore that, because they’ve taken it down.

In its place, ALA introduces its CapWiz-powered E-Advocacy Site. Why the change? Because, while it “offers the same features as our old Legislative Action Center [it] was selected because it has demonstrated a significantly higher delivery rate of email (98% successful delivery) to Congressional Offices than competing online advocacy software vendors.”

One thing I notice on this site that I don’t remember being on the previous Action Center is an RSS feed of the action alert section, so you can set those notifications to come up in your RSS reader, or incorporate them into your own website.

posted by Alan at 3:16 pm | Comments (0)

Talking Up Illinois CLICKS!

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote in our newsletter:

The new and improved Illinois CLICKS! site is scheduled to launch later this evening. Illinois CLICKS! needs your help in educating General Assembly members about this valuable project. View talking points, press release, and flyer for information about the project. The goal is to contact as many legislators as possible before the General Assembly starts meeting again this fall. In addition, a CLICKS! “street team” is being formed. Want to help get the word out and create a buzz? Contact Fran Roehm or Ginger Frere.

It’s still true: if you can take a minute to contact your legislators and tell them about the value of this project, it’d be a great help. And this is a wonderful example of how easy it can be to advocate—you’ve already got informational material and talking points provided for you!

If you need more information or clarification, drop Fran a line and she’ll give you any help you need.

posted by Alan at 10:10 am | Comments (0)

October 23, 2006

The Cost of Funding Libraries

Michael McGrorty over at Library Dust writes that libraries are potholes in the way their funding is dealt with in his neck of the woods:

When you call the city (any city, it seems) about problems like these, they always tell you that “It’s on schedule to be fixed,” which might be comforting but for the manner of fixing, which generally begins and ends with the dumping of some cold asphalt into the hole, where traffic mashes it into and then out of the depression in a matter of hours. But then, you know the cause of all these problems is nobody’s fault, but result from the frequent hard freezes we have in these latitudes.

Another hard freeze appears to have chilled the attitudes of the public toward library bond issues in this state. Recent events seem to indicate a definite fall-off in public support among Californians for this sort of thing, a phenomenon which no librarian in these parts wishes to become a permanent element of the political landscape.
…
The worst case, and it would indeed be very bad, would be if the state’s voters have permanently lost interest in the serial funding of library improvements—in the periodic but reliably regular dumping of asphalt in the potholes of our local library systems.

Go read the whole thing: it’s an interesting look at the question of funding libraries by bond issues.

The problem, as I see it, is that this doesn’t apply just to bond issues; even when we’re talking about straight-out direct increased funding (i.e. a referendum for a tax increase) you get the same thing: people wondering why they have to shell more money out of their own pockets to pay for this. By way of example: back in the mid-’90s, my local library (where I worked at the time) was putting forth a referendum to support library funding—it would’ve covered expanding the building, building the collections, and covering increased operation costs. Shortly after the vote (which failed) I got to talking about this referendum with my parents, and my father explained why he voted against it: “They say this money was for building, but after the building was completed they’d still be getting the same amount of money. I don’t think we should have to give that much if they aren’t covering construction costs.”

This is why library advocacy is so important, because we need to be able to tell the story—to our legislators, yes, but to the voting public, too—of why libraries are valuable and worth the government investment. Because if people start thinking of libraries like they do many other government agencies, that they’re money sinkholes that’ll just keep sucking more tax dollars and debt out of the public, it’ll mark Michael’s worst case above, and that would be very bad indeed.

posted by Alan at 9:20 am | Comments (0)

October 20, 2006

Illinois’s 6th on the Books

Political ads are pretty ubiquitous these days—I don’t have to tell you that. And I, like most people, pretty much tune them out when they’re on. But one for the IL-6 race (Peter Roskam v. Tammy Duckworth) that ran the other day caught my ear: Peter Roskam, the commercial says, supports banning books.

Wha-huh?

“Peter Roskam wanted to ban books from our schools and libraries,” the ad says. And that he “supported banning classic books” and “even wanted to ban a book with writings by: Martin Luther King, Laura Ingalls Wilder, [and] Dr. Seuss.”

The Chicago Tribune gives us a bit of perspective on this story: (free registration required)

The ads refer to a controversy in Wheaton schools in the early 1990s surrounding a series of textbooks called “Impressions,” which included those authors. They also contained some writings that some parents believed featured themes of the occult, witchcraft, violence and disrespect for parental authority.

At the time, Roskam, a Wheaton resident and social conservative, was seen as a tacit supporter of efforts to block the textbook series through failed state legislation to mandate greater parental involvement on advisory committees that screen educational materials. In 1993, Roskam also sponsored a proposal to outlaw material that “expressly counsels for suicide”—but opponents said it could have been applied to classics like “Romeo and Juliet” or “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

I’d love to find text of the actual legislation, but I haven’t been able to track track that down yet. But based on the Tribune description, it doesn’t sound like the type of thing many library groups would be in favor of.

So there’s a bit of context on that ad. Whether or not you would call that supporting banning books (Roskam, for his part, calls the claim “absurd” according to the Tribune story) depends, I guess, on your interpretation of things.

posted by Alan at 9:21 am | Comments (0)

October 13, 2006

Illinois Channel Tracks Campaign 2006

Fellow NSLSer Jennifer drew my attention to a good campaign tracking site maintained by Illinois Channel.

Illinois Channel, for those (like me) who didn’t know, is a public affairs programming channel (described by one of its founders as “C-SPAN for Illinois”) that provides video relating to Illinois politics to channels across the state. Their Campaign 2006 site is pretty comprehensive: it not only has a listing of all the candidates (including third party candidates) for every state legislative office, but it also provides video files where applicable of the various debates, press conferences, and other appearances for those offices.

For a quick ‘n’ easy way to get to know who’s running for office, it’s a pretty good tool. Check it out!

posted by Alan at 10:57 am | Comments (0)

Is There Such a Thing as a “Reasonable Restriction” on the First Amendment?

If you’re looking for something to do next Thursday afternoon, there’s an event co-sponsored by ILA that promises to be an interesting discussion:

Three Chicago journalist organizations plus the Illinois Library Association and Loyola University Journalism Program are co-sponsoring a very timely forum on The First Amendment: What are Reasonable Restrictions in Time of War, from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday, October 19, at Loyola University’s Rubloff Auditorium, 25 E. Pearson St., Chicago.

Among the panelists are Skokie Library’s own Carolyn Anthony, so we can rest assured the library perspective will be provided.

And if an informative discussion about timely topics or supporting a fellow librarian aren’t enough reasons to attend, the announcement informs us that “Admission is free and will include a brown bag lunch for the first 100 attendees.” Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?

posted by Alan at 8:58 am | Comments (0)