Congress has increased funding for the National Library of Medicine (NLM) via the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016. Additionally, Congress approved $44.5 million in direct funding to support “implementation of the public access policy, genome-wide association studies, and other NLM initiatives.” In previous years funding for these initiatives had to be transferred to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) from other NIH Institutes. This change is significant as it shows that Congress recognizes the increased resources necessary for “collecting, organizing, analyzing, and disseminating the increasing amounts of data related to research in molecular biology and genomics, and to support the deposit of manuscripts in PubMed Central under the NIH Public Access Policy.” For more information, see this Medical Library Association post.
In other appropriations news the American Library Association is calling on librarians to call on their Representative and Senators to write letters to members of the Appropriations Committee in support of Library Services and Technology Act funding. For more information see the District Dispatch.
State:
In depressing state-level news various Illinois politicians have been giving some fairly bleak predictions for when the end of the budget standoff will be. Sen. Christine Radogno recently said that “it’s possible” the budget standoff could last for years. Others have said it could last at least through the November 2016 election. The state senate and house meet again on February 10, 2016.