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2003 ALA Legislative Day Report

Wednesday, 01 July 2009 12:10
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2003 ALA Legislative Day Report
LACUNY Legislative Action Committee

Submitted to the LACUNY Executive Council 
by Shelley Warwick, June 13, 2003

The annual American Library Association Legislative Action day took place on May 13th this year. In the last ten years this event has expanded from a single day, with a briefing in the morning with visits in the afternoon, to a full day of briefings followed by a day of legislative visits, to a three day event with an orientation for first time attendees on the first day, briefings on the second day, and visits on the third day. Since all members of the LACUNY delegation had previously participated in this event they only went to Washington for the briefing and visit days.

Delegates: Stewart Bodner - Baruch College Charles Stewart, City College Shelly Warwick, GSLIS, Queens

Stewart and Warwick arrived at Union Station 10:15 a.m. on Monday, then went directly to a briefing on Surveillance, Privacy and USA Patriot Act (Bodner was only able to participate on the visit days, but has been following the issues throughout the year as a member of the ACRL Committee on Legislation).

After the morning briefing the delegation attended a luncheon sponsored by the ACRL. The first ACRL luncheon about four years ago was attended by about 12 librarians, but this year there appeared to be about 80. The fact that a free lunch is provided and a special briefing on issues of special impact to academic libraries indicates how important ACRL considers legislative day.

Speakers at the luncheon were Thomas Susman and Claudette Tennant who outlined the issues of most concern to ACRL:

1) Intellectual Property and Technology, specifically Anti-Circumvention, Database Protection, Distance Education, First Sale, H.R. 107 Pending, UCITA, 2) Government Information 3) Funding for LASTA, ESEA, Federal Depository Library Program, restoration of funding for the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, Library of Congress, National Agricultural Library, National Library of Medicine, other library and library related programs 4) Intellectual Freedom, Internet Filtering, (some academic libraries may be affected where Internet access is provided thorough state networks), and the USA Patriot Act, Homeland Security Act

After the luncheon the delegation attended the general afternoon briefing sessions on copyright and a general recap session that highlighted pending issues. After the briefings there was a meeting of New York State Delegation during which a final check was made of who was visiting which legislators, and arrangements were made to drop off issue kits for those legislators with whom no appointment had been made.

All ALA Legislative Day participants were invited to the launch of WebJunction, a web portal for librarians built by OCLC and funded by the Benton Foundation, the Bill & Belinda Gates Foundation, and a number of other partners. (The site can be viewed atwww.webjunction.org). The reception took place at the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, and provided the members of the delegation with an opportunity to view the exhibits as well as the launch presentation.

Tuesday started at 8:30 a.m. with the Friends of Libraries U.S.A. award being presented to Rep. Heter Hoekstra (MI). After the ceremony Stewart and Warwick were joined by Bodner for legislative visits. One of the goals of legislative day is to try to have each legislator visited by at least one of his or her constituents. This is easy with the senators, but more difficult with congress people. In some cases the delegates saw two different representatives, the one that represented the district in which they reside and the one that represents the district that houses the CUNY College where they are employed. In some cases the delegation called as a whole, and in other cases where there were conflicts in appointments, a delegate might visit alone. This year legislators seemed to be scarce so most discussions were held with their aides. In some cases visits were had with two different aides for the same legislator, the aide concerned with library funding issues and the aid concerned with more general policy matters, such as copyright, privacy, and access to government documents.

The delegates collectively visited with staff member of Senator Schumer, Congressmen Anthony Wiener (9th D) Jerrold Nadler (8th District), Major Owens (11th District) Rep. Vito Fossella (13th District), and Charles Rangel (15th District). Stewart, who resides in New Jersey, was also able to explain academic library issues to Rush Holt's office (NJ-12th District, and staffers for Senators Corzine and Lautenberg, even met briefly with Senator Lautenberg who expressed concern that library funding is so fragile. Since none of the pending issues had differential funding or implementation provisions it helps CUNY to bring the academic library position to as many legislators as possible. The visits require a great deal of walking, this year especially, as the subway between the House and Senate side of the Capitol was closed to visitors. Luckily it was a nice day which made rushing between the Senate and House office buildings more pleasant.

A delegation of Washington, D.C. librarians had made arrangements to visit with Major Owens (an M.L.S. and former public librarian) in order to ask him to introduce legislation to increase the funding of D.C. public libraries (which are directly budgeted by Congress). They requested that someone who lived in his district join the delegation, but since no one from his area in Brooklyn was in attendance, Warwick, as a New York City resident, volunteered to participate. It turned out that another strong supporter of libraries joined the group, Ralph Nader. Major Owens agreed to introduce the requested legislation, but observed that libraries always ask for too little.

At 5:00 p.m., after the visits were concluded, a reception was held for participants and legislators in the Rayburn building. Stewart by-passed the reception to take an early train home, while Bodner and Warwick remained to talk to legislators and their staff and visit with the rest of the New York delegation.

Participating in ALA Legislative Day is a fabulous experience. It provides an opportunity to be briefed on issues in depth and to use that information to help influence legislation that will help libraries and to be an active participant in democracy. It is hoped that some of those who were unable to come to Washington might be willing to visit their representatives in their district offices to explain what libraries need and enlist their support. It is suggested that LACUNY sponsor a briefing/advocacy workshop for librarians in the Fall. Briefings and advocacy training could be provided by an ALA. ACRL and/or NYLA representative assisted by members of the LACUNY Legislative Action Committee. The goal of the workshop would be to provide librarians with the information and strategy they need to promote the cause of academic libraries in their district.

More information about the various issues can be found at:

Respectfully Submitted,

Shelly Warwick
Chair, LACUNY Legislative Action Committee
 

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