ALA President responds to House proposal to eliminate IMLS; American Library Association (ALA) News, 3/25/15

Jazzy Wright, American Library Association (ALA)News; ALA President responds to House proposal to eliminate IMLS:

"The budget resolution released this week by the U.S. House Budget Committee proposes to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the agency that administers federal funding support for more than 123,000 libraries in virtually every community in the nation. American Library Association (ALA) President Courtney Young today released the following statement in response:

"We are shocked and appalled that the U.S. House Budget Committee would call for the elimination of federal support for the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the agency that administers federal funding to libraries. Our nation’s public libraries receive more than 1.5 billion in-person visitors(pdf) each year from students, parents, job-seekers and seniors alike. Through grant-making and federal funding, IMLS aids libraries in supporting lifelong learning and equitable access for all. Since its founding, IMLS has provided invaluable leadership and expert oversight to libraries and supported libraries in providing dynamic services to their patrons, such as workforce training, maker spaces, coding classes and entrepreneurship resources.

"ALA calls on every member of the Budget Committee, and of Congress, to recognize the enormous benefits that IMLS creates for libraries and constituents in their own communities. In Chairman Tom Price’s (R-GA) own district, for example, IMLS helped establish and now helps fund a hugely efficient and successful statewide library catalog that gives millions of Georgians and every library in the state access to everything in every other library’s collection. The State Librarian of Georgia estimates that replacing this statewide PINES network with individual systems would cost over $100 million over the next ten years alone."