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Ad Lib: Advocacy for Libraries

October 16, 2007

Where Your (Federal) Tax Dollars Go

TheBudgetGraph.com is a site that provides a graphical representation of where federal tax dollars go in the form of a large poster. It’s interesting to see how it all plays out.

If you follow the link to the poster, you can see an interactive version of it, where you can zoom in and out to see the different components. Why not head on over there and see if you can find any library-related funding? A cookie to the first person to point some out!

posted by Alan at 1:38 pm | Comments (0)

October 2, 2007

New Legislation: Revolutionizing Education Through Digital Investment

Mary Minow over at LibraryLaw tells us about a new bill that was introduced:

The official title of the bill (H.R. 3631) is the “Revolutionizing Education Through Digital Investment Act of 2007″.
…
This could really help libraries. The bill would create a Digital Trust to provide financing for research, development, and demonstration of advanced information technologies for lifelong learning…similar to the National Science Foundation model. Proposals for grants and contracts would generally be evaluated by peer review, as in the NSF grants.

None of Illinois’ lawmakers is currently listed as a cosponsor, so if you think this is something that deserves to be passed, why not drop them a line?

posted by Alan at 9:13 am | Comments (0)

Any Kentucky Readers Out There?

ALA brings this one to our attention:

The Presidential Records Act Amendments bill (H.R.1255) is currently being prevented from a vote in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY). He has not stated his reasons for doing so. H.R.1255 removes restrictions placed by President Bush’s 2001 Executive Order 13233 and enhances the Presidential Records Act, one of the nation’s most important open-government laws.
…
We are asking for your help,

1) Contact Sen. Bunning’s office by phone and ask that he release the hold on the bill so it can be scheduled for a vote. His direct office number is 202-224-4343.

2) Contact your Senator, tell them of your support for H.R.1255 and ask them to urge Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to have Sen. Bunning release the hold on the bill. You may do this via email, phone or letter. [emphasis in original]

(Unsurprisingly, our own Senator Obama—given his passion about open government—has already signed on as a co-sponsor of this bill in the Senate, but Sen. Durbin has not.)

The impact on libraries should be obvious: open information and record access is our lifeblood. So even though this doesn’t directly affect the library world (except for the Presidential Library world), it’s still important to the community as a whole.

posted by Alan at 8:15 am | Comments (0)