State of America's Libraries Report 2012

Public libraries continue to be battered by a national economy whose recovery from the Great Recession is proving to be sluggish at best. While providing what many state and local governments view as an easy target for budget-slashing, “People depend on libraries now more than ever,” said Susan Hildreth, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. “Not only do visits and circulation continue to rise, the role of public libraries in providing Internet resources to the public continues to increase as well. . . . 

“Despite this demonstrated ability of libraries to adjust to meet the growing needs of the public, many libraries across the country face severe budget cuts,” Hildreth said, commenting on a study of library use in the decade ending in 2009. “It’s important to remember that this data ends with 2009, before even more severe budget crises put so many libraries and library programs at risk.” 

Today’s public libraries are grappling with a “new normal” of flat or decreased funding, paired with increased demand for public library technology resources. (Source: Libraries Connect Communities: Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study, 2010–2011)

read more at http://www.ala.org/news/mediapresscenter/americaslibraries/soal2012/public-libraries

WisconsinEye

On May 16th WisconsinEye will mark its fifth anniversary of bringing gavel-to-gavel, C-SPAN-style nonpartisan coverage of state government and politics to Wisconsin. At a time of major changes in our state's public life and news media, WisconsinEye has established itself as a unique and vital resource for meeting the information needs of citizens and communities. 
 Here's is a list of their achievements so far: 

• Gavel-to-gavel, nonpartisan coverage of state government, providing the public with a verbatim record of legislative debate for the first time in the state's history—all at no cost to taxpayers. 
• More than 300 hours of coverage of the historic political confrontation in Madison in February and March 2011, including live coverage of an unprecedented 62-hour Assembly session and mass demonstrations inside and outside of the Capitol. 
• Transparent and thorough coverage of Gov. Walker’s 2009-11 budget repair bill and 2011-13 state budget, including end-to-end coverage of all Joint Finance Committee meetings in Madison and statewide. 
•  Oral arguments and other public sessions of the state Supreme Court covered in their entirety. -Produced studio and field programming presenting the daily public policy discussion statewide that constitutes "Civic Wisconsin." 
•  Hundreds of hours of coverage of candidates and campaigns during the 2008 and 2010 state election cycles. 
•  Multimedia, multiplatform delivery on cable TV and the Web, including a permanent online archive of state government proceedings available to the public at no charge. We're now available 24/7 on Time Warner Cable digital Channel 363 in addition to Charter digital Channel 995 and BadgerNet. 
•  Feeds to other local, national and international news organizations for their reporting on Wisconsin state government and politics. 

 If you would like to learn more about WisconsinEye, I welcome the opportunity to speak with you and your colleagues about the network and show you our services, including MyWisconsinEye.

Christopher Long, President and CEO

ph: 608-316-6850 x302

Toll Free: 866-273-5755

cell: 608-658-7901

fax: 608-316-6868

chris.long@wiseye.org

www.wiseye.org

ALA Launches Text-Message Advocacy Service

This year, the American Library Association launched Mobile Commons, a new advocacy tool that will allow library supporters to receive text message alerts from the ALA’s Office of Government Relations. The opt-in service will allow the ALA to communicate advocacy messages in a quick and effective fashion using an innovative texting and calling feature.

Advocacy subscribers will have the option to call legislators to discuss particular issues toll-free through Mobile Commons. The text messages will provide subscribers with talking points on issues before automatically transferring the advocates to the offices of their legislators.
Advocates who wish to sign up for the service can text the word “library” to 877877 or sign up online at districtdispatch.org/textalerts.

Mobile Commons was created to deliver more timely communication with advocates and to generate a higher volume of calls into Congress. The Office of Government Relations was alerted to the service after the micro-blogging site Tumblr used it to generate 88,000 calls into the House of Representatives in 14 hours as part of their opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

Example: “This timely program will make it much easier for library advocates to stay informed and get involved in the issues facing our nation’s libraries.”

Service subscribers can expect to receive 2-3 texts per month on average.

from http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/ala-launches-text-message-advocacy-service