Activist Alert!

Ask Your Congressional Representatives
to Support Funding
for Libraries and Childhood Literacy

Appropriations season is heating up in Washington DC. Please call your U.S. Representative by Wednesday, April 10 and ask them to sign two separate "Dear Colleague" letters that will greatly help libraries.

Support Funding for LSTA
in FY 2014
Ask your representative to support funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). Here's why:

• LSTA is the primary source of funding for libraries in the federal budget
• LSTA helps many public libraries provide services to users that include, but are not limited to: job searches, résumé building help, digital literacy workshops, access to e-government services, etc.

Your representative can sign a letter indicating their support for LSTA in the FY13 budget. Ask your representative to contact Rep. Raul Grijalva's (D-AZ) office to sign the LSTA letter.


Support Funding for the Innovative Approaches to Literacy Competitive Grant
Ask your representative to support Childhood Literacy in FY 2014. Here is why:

• Congress included $28.6 million in the FY12 budget for this competitive grant administered through the U.S. Department of Education to support school libraries and national nonprofit literacy organization working toward childhood literacy
• A minimum of half of this money will go as a competitive grant to low-income school libraries to help update their books and materials.

Ask your representative to sign a letter supporting Childhood Literacy in FY 2014, here's how:

Republicans: If your representative is a Republican, ask them to contact Rep. Don Young's (R-AK) office to sign on to this letter.

Democrats: If your representative is a Democrat, ask them to contact Rep. Jim McGovern's (D-MA) office to sign on to this letter.


Please call today! It's EASY.  Go to the Action Alert page of the ALA website and enter your zip code into the "Call Now" box to find the number for your representative.