From the Director's Desk

October 7, 2009

Beverly J. Obert, Executive Director

Save Illinois Libraries

Join me in contacting your State Senators and Representatives between Thursday, Oct. 9th and Friday Oct 23 to Save Illinois Libraries.

As you know funding for library grants in Illinois were cut by 50% by the Illinois State Legislature. Secretary White was able to reduce the impact of those cuts by using the LSTA funding to support the library grant program. Even with this alternative funding, system funds are being reduced by 16.5% for FY 2010.

The Save Illinois Libraries campaign asks library supporters, men, women, children, library staff, patrons boards or administrators, friends, whoever is a library supporter, to contact their Illinois Senator and Representative. Inform them of the importance of libraries in their lives and ask them to sign on to the “promise”. This is what the promise says—  

“Recognizing the importance of libraries and library systems to our communities and to the livelihood of the citizens of the state of Illinois, I (lawmaker) will work to oppose any additional cuts to library per capita grants in FY10. Furthermore, I will work to fully fund library per capita grants when additional state funding becomes available in the future.”

The campaign begins at 10:30 Thursday morning, Oct. 8th. Secretary of State/State Librarian Jesse White will help the Illinois Library Community kick-off the campaign at the exhibit hall booth 425 of the ILA Conference in Peoria. Join us there if you can.

If you will not be in Peoria, join the campaign from your own library. It is easy! Go to the Save Illinois Libraries website to learn more about the campaign. From there, click the link to CapWiz and send a message to your legislators. A message already been prepared on CapWiz that you can tweak with your own story or you can create your own compelling story about the library. The key message is that you want them to sign on to the “promise”.

Once you send your message you will have the opportunity to send it to 6 of your friends and ask them to also send a message to the legislators. I encourage you to do this.

Other Ideas—

• Set up a display about the campaign and have one computer set up for patrons to use to send the message to their legislators.

• Print out the campaign information and include instructions on how to access cap wiz. Hand this out to the patrons as they check out their books and ask them to support the library by sending this message.

• Do you have a friends group? Oct. 18-24 is National Friends of Libraries Week while thanking your friends for all the work they do for you, ask them do one more thing; email this message to their legislators.

The time is now. The legislators are returning to Springfield for their fall veto session. They need to hear the voice of Illinois Libraries. Take Action! It does not matter what form of contact you make with your legislators. But, it is important that you contact them.

Rolling Prairie Library System
A Library for Librarians
Helping Libraries Serve Illinois Citizens