Earlier this week the PPA office held a briefing with state chapter leaders and advocates outlining an action plan to stop the House Republican proposed cuts to the IMLS and LSTA that I previously reported to Council at the Annual Conference. Please see the recap below. We ask Councilors to help take action to Stop the Cuts and help maintain federal funding for libraries. Before reaching out to Senate offices, communicate with your fellow library leaders across your state's library ecosystem, including your state librarian, ALA, AASL, ACRL chapter leaders and others. It is important to discuss who is scheduling meetings and who will be attending. --- Hello all, Thank you for joining yesterday's legislative strategy briefing. The enthusiasm in the room gave me hope that we can stop these proposed cuts! Here is the link to the recording, and attached are the slides: ala-events.zoom.us/rec/share/... Feel free to share the recording with colleagues who couldn't attend and note that it will expire on 8/23. If you need access after that date, you can reach out directly. As discussed in the briefing, we are requesting that library leaders meet with your Senators' offices between now and the end of the August congressional recess. After your meeting, please log it using our Meeting Report Form – this will help us target congressional outreach through the rest of the year. To help those meetings run smoothly, we are providing the following: - Senate staffer contacts for both appropriations staffers and in-state staffers: Senate Staffer List.csv
- Advocate talking points (for internal eyes only): attached
- State-by state funding fact sheets, showing federal library funding for each state (to give to Senate offices): Link to folder
Finally, some in the meeting had requested social graphics and sample text. See our FundLibraries graphics attached (sized for different social media services), and below is sample social text: "The House of Representatives has proposed a 15% cut to federal library funding. We need to #FundLibraries, not defund them, to support the vital services that they provide for our students, seniors, jobseekers, veterans, and so many other members of our community! @LibraryPolicy" (tag your Senators in these posts as well!) We will be launching grassroots actions in the coming days to make noise on this issue, so please watch for those and share as you can. Thank you for your work!!
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