News Report

http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/february2009/orscosla.cfm
State Funding for Many Public libraries on Decline
Febuary 10, 2009
No Author

This article is much like many others that have been popping up on the ALA press release web page. It is about the decrease in funding for libraries during a time where the use of libraries has been skyrocketing. The article mentions that the southeastern section of the United States has been hit the hardest. The state with the largest reduction in library funding has been South Carolina which has had it's funding cut back by as much as 30% for it's libraries. Other states with large library cut backs include Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia. Jim Rettig, the president of the ALA, spoke about this problem saying, "Libraries are part of the solution when a community is struggling economically – assisting the unemployed with jobs searches and filing unemployment benefits, helping the unskilled learn to use a computer, providing homework help and access to e-government services" and then added to that by saying, “Now is the time to call members of Congress and make sure libraries are included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” North Carolina was also on the list of states expected to experience a decline in funding for libraries in the 2009 Fiscal Year.

We have spoke about this problem almost every week while sharing our news reports but the problem does not fail to amaze me each time. Agreeing with the words of Jim Rettig, I do believe that libraries have become increasingly important to citizens of the United States during these hard economic times and that we need to do more to improve their funding. Citizens are becoming dependent on libraries for the use of the Internet. With the unemployment rate soaring higher and higher people need computers to look for jobs because employers are posting jobs on the Web instead of in newspapers because it is cheaper. Public libraries have become increasingly important as of late and our nation needs to figure out a way to fund them more properly.