Federal:
National Library Legislative Day is right around the corner: May 1-2, 2017. Registration to participate in the Virtual Library Legislative Day is open! You’ll be emailed a reminder and talking points on May 1. Sign up today.
Many library supporters contacted their House representatives over the past few weeks to encourage the signing of two Dear Appropriator letters, supporting funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and Innovative Approaches to Literacy (IAL). With the signatures garnered, support for IAL grew 18% and for LSTA by 64%. Later this month, there will be a call to contact your Senators to support library funding, which is under threat of elimination in the proposed FY18 presidential budget. The full story is at the District Dispatch.
State:
Our Illinois politicians are back in session this week and hopefully working on the budget. For a quick overview of the state of that budget work and a few big issues being discussed right now, you can check out this article from the State Journal Register: Lawmakers return from spring break; ‘bargain’ remains unresolved.