Iowa DU public library friends & users...PLEASE READ AND ACT!

[Hobarticus]

Please, even if you don't use your public library that much, this is a case of misguided priorities. This will also affect school libraries and media centers.

GOVERNOR CHET CULVER PROPOSES LIBRARY CUTS

Library supporters in Iowa are organizing a grassroots effort to protest a recent proposal by Governor Chet Culver to cut state funding for libraries by 18 percent, a move that could also affect school media centers. Under Governor Culver’s proposed 2009 budget, public library funding will get cut; surprisingly, Culver's budget actually increases overall state spending by 6 percent.

"Let's be adamant, yet polite," advises a January 15 memo addressed to "Fellow Librarians," from Michael Dargan, government affairs committee chair of the Iowa Library Association (ILA), which has 1,600 members. "Politely remind him that Iowa's libraries are a key component of our education system. School libraries teach Iowa's students to locate and evaluate information….and public libraries provide community-based opportunities for life-long learning."

To let Governor Culver and your state legislators know what you think about these proposed cuts to Iowa’s libraries, please contact them at:

Governor's website:

http://www.governor.iowa.gov/administration/contact/

Contact your state legislator through this link:

http://www.legis.state.ia.us/findleg/

[Bluzmann57]

1. Good Grief! How can anyone who is "progressive" cut libraries?

For that matter, how can anyone at all cut libraries? They are just great. When I was unemployed in '96, had little money and certainly had no way of buying a computer, the local Library was a bastion of info, both by computer and out of town newspapers. And they remain so to this day. I am starting to think that maybe it's time to send Culver a message: Progressives got you elected, and we can see to it that you do not get re-elected. We need libraries.

[Hobarticus]

2. Shocked the hell outta me...

...and seriously killed my Culver buzz. Not sure what this is about, I wrote him and asked him why.

Librarians are asking for 100 members of each library's community to contact their governor and legislators.

[Bluzmann57]

3. My sister is assistant director of a local library system

Not in this state, although she was born, raised, and attended college in this state. But I imagine she is going to be irritated about this. But I have every intention of contacting the Gov about this. Maybe he should shelve the non smoking thing and make sure libraries have proper funding.

[Hobarticus]

4. Go get 'em! eom

[haroldgiowa]

6. I found the following:

Libraries are more important in scary times. In the short term, they provide us with the knowledge of how to manage in a crisis. In the long term, they help us to figure out how to mitigate the effects of that crisis and, hopefully, how to avoid the next one.

"Education, books and libraries were instrumental in developing our society, in sustaining it as a democracy, and in promoting the innovations like fertilizer, telephones, spinning jennies and the internet, that allow us to live comfortably.

Libraries may even save the world someday when we are better at sharing knowledge with others. Maybe someday, when we are successful enough, there won't even be a 'them'. "

Paulette Dickerson P.O. Box 598 Kensington, MD. 20895-0598
pdickerson(at)hers.com
http://librariesfriend.com
Private Citizen / Library Advocate

I was curious to why we have libraries in the first place. I knew it was started by our founding fathers. It was their intent that the common man, that being us, were entitled to information that would be contained in the walls of the American Library system.

It is ashamed that libraries take alot of the heat when budget cuts are made at the top. This is part of the trickel down for libraries. The federal cuts subsidies to the state, the state cuts the cities and the cities pick easy targets. I always call federal and state cuts what they are, a tax shift. The locals raise taxes to support programs that the feds and state cut the money on.

[Hobarticus]

5. Here's a link, by request...

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6525371.html