ALAWON v2n13 (April 9, 1993) URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/alawon/alawon-v2n13 ****Begin File******************Begin File*******************Begin File**** *************************************************************************** ALAWON ALA Washington Office Newsline An electronic publication of the American Library Association Washington Office Volume 2, Number 13 April 9, 1993 In this issue: (190 lines) CLINTON'S DETAILED BUDGET RELEASED *************************************************************************** CLINTON'S DETAILED BUDGET RELEASED The Clinton Administration's FY 1994 budget request was finally submitted to Congress on April 8. For libraries, the message is a good new/bad news budget. The largest LSCA title for improvement of public library services would be increased by 14.1 percent. This is a welcome and significant increase. However, it is more than offset by the proposed elimination of other LSCA titles for construction/renovation, foreign language materials, and library literacy programs. The LSCA total would drop by 10.8 percent. All Higher Education Act library programs would be eliminated. The rationale unfortunately repeats tired old Bush and Reagan Administration boilerplate. The HEA library budget does not reflect the extent to which the recent reauthorization of these programs tied them in to the Clinton/Gore emphasis on electronic networking and the reality that the HEA library programs are supporting many Internet/NREN projects. PROGRAM (amounts in thousands) FY 1993 FY94 ADMIN. APPROP. REQUEST LIBRARY SERVICES & CONSTRUCTION ACT $128,626 $114,700 Title I, public library services 83,227 95,000 II, pub. lib. construction 16,584 0 III, interlibrary cooperation 19,749 19,700 IV, Indian library services * * V, foreign language materials 968 0 VI, library literacy programs 8,098 0 *2% of LSCA I, II, & III HIGHER EDUCATION ACT 18,425 0 Title II-A, college library tech. 3,873 0 II-B, library education 4,960 0 II-B, research & demonstrations 2,802 0 II-C, research libraries 5,808 0 VI sec 607, foreign research materials 982 0 Adult Educ. & Literacy 1,481,391 1,454,714 ESEA Chapter 2 school block grant 458,413 435,461 GPO Superintendent of Documents 29,082 33,707 Natl. Center for Educ. Statistics 77,850 125,000 NCLIS 889 904 Library of Congress 334,316 364,352 National Agricultural Library 17,715 17,915 National Archives 160,045 189,182 Natl. Endowment for the Arts 174,460 174,593 Natl. Endowment for the Humanities 177,413 177,491 Natl. Hist. Pubs. & Records Com. 5,000 4,000 National Library of Medicine 116,743 116,979 (incl. Medical Lib. Asst. Act) Postal revenue forgone 121,912 91,434 "Investment in change to pursue the National Education Goals is the theme of the President's first budget for the Department of Education." At a departmental budget briefing, Deputy Secretary of Education Madeleine Kunin said that this year's budget focused on children and the Department's Goals 2000 proposed legislation. For ED as a whole, a 5.6 percent increase is proposed. With an inflation factor of 2.7 percent, the result is very modest indeed for education. Of the 24 programs proposed for elimination, about one-fourth are library programs. Kunin said that the small LSCA programs had been zeroed out, and that the large Public Library Services program had been increased. She explained that this would be a "painful adjustment" to people used to categorical programs, but "if your program is valid, it should survive the competition." This is what the Department has to say about LSCA: PUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICES (LSCA I): "The Federal Government also has a role to play in supporting public libraries." An increase of 14 percent is proposed. "States will be encouraged to support activities to help meet the National Education Goals." PUBLIC LIBRARY CONSTRUCTION (LSCA II): No funding is requested. "Federal support is no longer necessary." INTERLIBRARY COOPERATION (LSCA III): Request equals FY93 level. "The requested level will enable the States to expand their networking capabilities and extend resource sharing activities to more libraries." FOREIGN LANGUAGE MATERIALS (LSCA V): No funding is requested. "States may use Public Library Services funds to purchase these materials." LIBRARY LITERACY PROGRAMS (LSCA VI): No funding is requested. "States may support literacy activities with Public Library Services funds." No funds are requested for any HEA library program. At the briefing Sally Christensen, Acting Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget, said that the HEA amounts were very small and had outlived their usefulness. She said that higher education institutions had $3 to $4 billion to spend on libraries. In response to a question from the audience, she explained that the figure of $3-4 billion was the entire amount that U.S. colleges and universities spent on libraries. Here is the Department's rationale for zero funding requests: COLLEGE LIBRARY TECHNOLOGY AND COOPERATION (HEA II-A): No funding is requested for the program, which the Department describes as supporting "grants primarily to institutions of higher education for the acquisition of up-to-date equipment used to expand library resource sharing among the Nation's colleges and universities." "Institutions can acquire such equipment without Federal support." RESEARCH AND DEMONSTRATIONS (HEA II-B): No funding is requested. "Funds are available from other sources for this activity." LIBRARY EDUCATION (HEA II-B): No funding is requested. "There is no demonstrated need for additional training of library personnel." RESEARCH LIBRARY RESOURCES (HEA II-C): No funding is requested. "Other sources of support, such as university endowments, are available for these activities." ACTION NEEDED IMMEDIATELY - HEA LIBRARY PROGRAMS Reaction to this budget request should be swift and immediate, including praise where praise is due. However, the college and research library programs and library education and research need special attention. The zeroes for these programs reflect the last decade's rhetoric, not this Administration's priorities. Contact legislators while they're home during recess if you are not coming to Library Legislative Day on April 20. It's important to turn sentiment around immediately to strong support for HEA library programs because: o College library technology and research library programs are supporting Internet/NREN related projects; they fit naturally into the Clinton technology initiative. o The unmet demand is enormous; the HEA II-A technology program has 260 applications for $35 million worth of assistance, but only $3.8 million to spend. o The HEA II-B education program has just been expanded to support doctoral candidates to alleviate faculty shortages, and to develop youth services and science reference librarians--emphases badly needed and geared specifically to the education goals. Zero funds would leave many doctoral candidates stranded with no funds to continue their program. ACTION NEEDED IMMEDIATELY - LEGISLATIVE BRANCH Congress is likely to consider the legislative appropriations bill first, and is under intense pressure to cut the funds it spends on the legislative branch, even though programs such as the Library of Congress and the Depository Library Program affect constituents in every state and district. While they are home, let legislators know how important the funding of the GPO Depository Library Program is to public access to government information. Urge your Senators and Representatives to fund the full $33.7 million the Public Printer has requested for the Superintendent of Documents appropriation. Urge support of LC's request of $364.4 million, which is bare bones and will result in reduced services if cut. *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** ALAWON is an irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office, 110 Maryland Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-5675. Editor and List Owner: Fred King. Phone: 202-547-4440; Fax: 202-547-7363; Bitnet: NU_ALAWASH@CUA; Internet: NU_ALAWASH@CUA.EDU All or part of ALAWON may be redistributed, with appropriate credits. ALAWON is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe ala-wo [your name]" to listserv@uicvm (Bitnet) or listserv@uicvm.uic.edu (internet). Back issues of ALAWON are available from the list server. To find out what's available, send the message "send ala-wo filelist" to the listserv. The ALA-WO filelist contains the list of files with the exact filename and filetype. To get a particular file, issue the command "send filename filetype" to the listserv. *************************************************************************** ***End of file******************End of file******************End of file***