Take five minutes to call, email, or Tweet at your Members of Congress help preserve over $210 million in library funding now at risk.
All the details that follow are 
directly copied from District Dispatch @ALALibrary, see it here. Posted by: Kevin Maher March 22, 2017 in Funding, Legislation
"Your limited-time-only chance to ask for your House Member’s backing for LSTA and IAL begins now.
Where does your Representative stand on supporting FY 2018 library funding? Against the backdrop of the President’s proposal last week to eliminate the Institute for Museum and Library Services and virtually all other library funding sources, their answer this year is more important than ever before.
Every Spring, library champions in Congress ask every Member of the House to sign two, separate “Dear Appropriator” letters directed to the Appropriations Committee: one urging full funding for LSTA (which benefits every kind of library),
... and the second asking the same for the Innovative Approaches to Literacy program. This year, the LSTA support letter is being led by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ3). The IAL support letter is being jointly led by Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX30), Don Young (R-AK), and Jim McGovern (D-MA2).
The first “Dear Appropriator” letter asks the Committee to fully fund LSTA in FY 2018 and the second does the same for IAL. When large numbers of Members of Congress sign these letters, it sends a strong signal to the House Appropriations Committee to reject requests to eliminate IMLS, and to continue funding for LSTA and IAL at least at current levels.
Members of the House have only until April 3 to let our champions know that they will sign the separate LSTA and IAL “Dear Appropriator” letters now circulating, so there’s no time to lose. Use ALA’s Legislative Action Center today to ask your Member of Congress to sign both the LSTA and IAL letters. Many Members of Congress will only sign such a letter if their constituents ask them to. So it is up to you to help save LSTA and IAL from elimination or significant cuts that could dramatically affect hundreds of libraries and potentially millions of patrons.
Five minutes of your time could help preserve over $210 million in library funding now at risk.
Soon, we will also need you to ask both of your US Senators to sign similar letters not yet circulating in the Senate, but timing is key. In the meantime, today’s the day to ask your Representative in the House for their signature on both the LSTA and IAL “Dear Appropriator” letters that must be signed no later than April 3.
Whether you call, email, tweet or all of the above (which would be great), the message to the friendly office staff of your Senators and Representative is all laid out at the Legislative Action Center and it’s simple:
“Hello, I’m a constituent. Please ask Representative ________ to sign both the FY 2018 LSTA and IAL ‘Dear Appropriator’ letters circulating for signature before April 3.”
Please, take five minutes to call, email, or Tweet at your Members of Congress and watch this space throughout the year for more on how you can help preserve IMLS and federal library funding. We need your help this year like never before."
