Thursday, July 30, 2009

Special Projects

The library system has been awarded grants from the national Institute for Museum and Library Services to develop Grove Family Library's teen collection and to introduce "In Motion @ Your Public Library" to all preschool storytime participants. The state government has decided to withhold our payments of federal grant money until the PA budget is resolved, delaying implementation of these two exciting projects.

Just to keep you up to speed, however, Lou Cowles and Grove staff have placed one order for new teen reads with their initial grant payment. So watch for the new items and visti their reorganized Teen Center.

We have appointed Lori Cooley the coordinator of the preschool "In Motion" project, ordered yoga mats from Dunhams at a nice discount, and prepared orders for program and collection materials to support the project. Hopefully, we will still be able to introduce the program this fall in most of Franklin County's libraries.

State Funding

I have been so busy creating tools to help library supporters advocate (see the main webpage) that I haven't spared time to talk to you on the blog. At Franklin County Library System, we need all hands on deck to convince state legislators that public libraries are MOST CRITICAL to the public during economic crisis.

While we do not expect to avoid cuts completely, we are asking on behalf of our customers that our cuts be equitable to other critical human services. There has been repeated talk from the Senate of cutting public libraries by 50%, like was done in 2003. That would have a crippling affect on your library services, reducing our overall budget by 20%.

Your voice counts! Please let it be heard in favor of strong funding for Pennsylvania public libraries.