Action Alert! Virtual Maryland Library Legislative Days 2012

Let your voice be heard!  The third Virtual Maryland Library Legislative Days are being held to coincide with the live Maryland Library Legislative Day advocacy event.  Between January 25th and February 1st, members of the Maryland library community—library staff, trustees, Friends groups, customers, volunteers—are encouraged to use Capwiz to write to their state legislators.  Please take the time during this week to send a personal message to your state representatives to advocate for libraries!  If you are already going to Annapolis, use the Action Alert to send a thank you to the legislators you visited. To begin, go to Capwiz and click on the Take Action button below Maryland: Virtual Library Legislative Days.

Thank you in advance for your advocacy efforts!

House introduces SKILLs Act

The House has introduced a Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries (SKILLs) Act, HR 3776. This is a companion bill to S 1328, which was withdrawn in committee in October due to lack of support. The hope is that the House bill will fare better. The bill would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and strengthen school library programs. For more information, please see the District Dispatch post.

 

Proposed budget to share total retirement costs between state and locals

Governor O’Malley released his FY 2013 proposed budget yesterday. It does include a shift of retirement costs to the local governments. Currently, the state pays all of the costs for teacher pensions (a total of $946 million) and the counties and Baltimore City pay all of the costs for social security. O’Malley’s proposal would combine these two retirement costs and split them 50/50 between the state and the local governments. Although this is still an increase in the costs for local governments, it is not as high as if there a shift of pension costs and no change in social security.

 

At this point, the budget is in the hands of the General Assembly. The General Assembly may take things out of the budget, but not put something in it. This means that they can choose to reduce the costs being pushed down to the local governments; however, to do that and keep the budget balanced they must reduce spending elsewhere. Concern over this push down will be raised at the Maryland Library Legislative Day.

Anti-piracy bills lose support

Thanks to yesterday’s blackout and advocacy efforts, many legislators, including Senator Cardin, are pulling their support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, HR 3261) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA, S 968). Although these legislators still feel that the piracy issues must be addressed, they now agree that these bills require changes to avoid the many negative consequences. For more information, see this Roll Call article. (For background information, see the Legislative Panel’s blog post.)

Thank you to everyone who took action on this issue! You helped to make a difference!

O’Malley’s proposed budget to include shift of teacher pension costs to counties

On Wednesday, January 18^th, O’Malley will release his FY 2013 budget. It is believed that the proposal will include a $240 million shift of teacher pension costs, including that of public librarians, to the counties and Baltimore City. Currently the state pays $955 million per year in teacher pension costs.

For more information, please see the Baltimore Sun article.

Website blackout today to protest SOPA & PIPA, anti-piracy bills

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1/19/2012 Update: Anti-piracy bills lose support. See update.

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Wikipedia and other websites are having a blackout on January 18^th to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, HR 3261) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA, S 968)—two anti-piracy bills being considered in Congress. Although the bills aim to prevent Internet piracy, they also raise concerns about censorship and liability for internet service providers and libraries. The American Library Association (ALA) has taken a position against these two bills because of these concerns. In addition, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN, S 2029) was recently introduced and is currently being reviewed by ALA.

For basic information about these bills, check out these resources:

• Graphical representation of SOPA - A simple explanation of the bill and its impact, although slightly outdated in terms of the bill’s progress. (If the picture is small, click on it to enlarge.)
• OpenCongress.org – Summary of SOPA , PIPA and OPEN Act.
• PIPA, SOPA and OPEN Act Quick Reference Guide – Provides basic information and concerns for each bill from the ALA.

 To take action on this issue, check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s web site.

Action Alert! White House Petition for School Libraries!

Support funding for school library programs! Sign an online petition to the White House to ask that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provide dedicated funding to help support effective school library programs. Even if you do not work in school libraries, please consider participating in this advocacy effort. The petition needs 25,000 signatures by February 4^th.

The petition is available at http://wh.gov/Wgd.

The petition web site can be temperamental, especially when it experiencing high traffic volume. If you run into problems, you are encouraged to try again later.

White House petitions on We the People must be authored by individuals, not any association. Therefore, Carl Harvey, 2011-2012 President of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), has introduced this petition as an individual, not as a representative of AASL or the American Library Association (ALA). We the People is a new tool that allows an individual to petition the Obama Administration online. If a petition gets at least 25,000 signatures, White House staff will review it, send it to the appropriate experts and issue an official response.

Thanks in advance for any advocacy efforts you can provide!

Maryland Library Legislative Day 2012 – Coming Soon!

The 90-day legislative session of the Maryland General Assembly begins today. Each year during this time, members of the Maryland library community gather in Annapolis and advocate for libraries. This year’s Maryland Library Legislative Day will be Wednesday, January 25^th.  Activities will include:

• 8:00am – Briefing – Advocates arrive at the Anne Arundel County Public Law Library, Suite 303 of the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, for a briefing on current issues, advocacy strategies and what to expect from this legislative session.
• 10:00am – Recognition in the General Assembly – The Senate and/or House of Delegates will recognize the day as Maryland Library Day.  Supporters should arrive outside the appropriate balcony doors before 10:00am to get a seat when the doors open.  After the library community is acknowledged, people may quietly leave the balcony.
• 5:30pm – 7:30pm – Reception – The day concludes with a reception in the President’s conference room of the Miller Senate Office Building.  Members of the Maryland library community are welcome to attend. Invitations have been sent to Senators, Delegates and other government officials.

Visits with legislators occur throughout the day and are coordinated by members of the MLA Legislative Panel and the Maryland Association of Public Library Administrators (MAPLA).  This provides a great opportunity to thank legislators for past support, talk about services that libraries provide to their constituents, promote the value of libraries and encourage support for libraries.

If you are unable to participate in any of these activities, the Legislative Panel will also be coordinating a Virtual Maryland Library Legislative Day.  Details on the virtual event will be posted on this blog on January 25^th.

Congress passes FY 12 budget bill; includes funding for libraries

Both the Senate and the House have now passed an Omnibus Appropriations Bill and the President is expected to sign it this week. The bill provides funding for libraries, including:

• $28.6 million for literacy, at least half of which must go to low income school libraries.
• $185 million for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA).

For more details, see the District Dispatch post.

Again, many thanks to everyone who contacted members of Congress to ask for support of library funding! Votes for the Appropriations bill followed party lines among Maryland’s members of Congress. In the Senate, Mikulski and Cardin both voted for the bill and in the House Cummings, Edwards, Hoyer, Ruppersberger, Sarbanes and Van Hollen voted for the bill. Please feel free to thank these members of Congress for their support of libraries with a phone call or using Capwiz!

House passes Omnibus Appropriations Bill with provisions for school libraries, Senate expected to do the same on Saturday

On Friday, the House passed the Conference Report for an Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which included funds for school libraries.  Thanks to Senator Jack Reed, who had funding included in the Appropriations Bill for Literacy, including a competitive Grant Program for school libraries.

Many thanks to all the school library supporters who called their Representatives over the past two months! The House kept Senator Reed’s program in the Bill and it is now going to the Senate.  They are expected to pass it on Saturday.