Statewide Efforts

Jacksonville FL Libraries Threatened With Major Cuts

From the Florida Times Union: Six library locations would close, a day would be sliced from operations and materials would be cut if the Jacksonville Public Library is forced to find $2.4 million in reductions.

That’s the level of cuts the library would have to make if all city departments had to reduce their budgets by 13.9 percent, as requested by Mayor Alvin Brown’s office.

The library’s board of trustees voted Thursday on a plan that would shutter the Maxville, Brentwood, San Marco, Willowbranch, University Park and Beaches branches.

The closures would result in cutting about 30 positions, said Brenda Simmons-Hutchins, the chair of the library board. Last year the library cut 70 positions. Before those cuts, the library had 281 full-time employees.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-06-14/story/six-jacksonville-libraries-could-shutter-under-plan-find-24-million-cuts#ixzz2WIu9KCZ4

Philadelphia teacher sets sights on Rebuilding School Libraries through Library Build

The library at Rowen Elementary School in North Philadelphia is musty and outdated – a locked room used for storage and occasional meetings, a repository of yellowing, untouched books.

But Callie Hammond has big dreams for the room, whose leather-bound encyclopedias were printed in 1986, the year she was born.
Hammond sees the West Oak Lane public school as a launching pad for Library Build, a nonprofit group she recently started to renovate and staff school libraries with fellows in the Teach for America model.

The plan is to start in city elementary schools with no library. Library Build would recruit and pay library science graduates in exchange for a two-year service commitment to city schools.

“Libraries do amazing things,” said Hammond, who was a Philadelphia School District middle school teacher until she was laid off in June.

Research shows that library access matters. Students who have a library at school tend to perform better on assessments than those who do not. Libraries can encourage children to love reading and think of it not just as a chore to be handled in the classroom.

When Hammond was laid off from teaching social studies and science to nonnative English speakers at Wilson Middle School at the end of last school year, she figured it was time to work on Library Build full time.

These days, she divides her time between working on grant applications – Library Build received its first award, $10,000 from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation – and organizing the collection at Rowen. She is also studying for her master’s degree in public administration at the University of Pennsylvania.

More on this inspirational young woman from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

BHAG 3.0 What’s Next?! Sustained Library Advocacy

Library advocacy is not a one-time deal. Keep a good thing going: http://goo.gl/xn1NI

Finding the Future & Establishing Relevance

Finding the Future: Inside NYPL’s All-Night Scavenger Hunt

Huff Post: Communities Stand Behind Librarians

Communities Stand Behind Librarians Facing Layoffs

Save JeffCO Libraries

An advocacy movement from Jefferson County, CO.

In the News: BHAG Public Library Advocacy

A great advocacy article from (my thoroughly awesome boss) Jamie LaRue: Keeping Our Message Simple | American Libraries Magazine.

BHAG 2.0: advocating for school libraries

The Colorado Association of Libraries has formed an Advocacy Task Force, and is focusing on school library advocacy in 2011. The project includes a toolkit for school library lovers and advocates.