Libraries are in need of your help–actually, not just libraries–students need your help.  And they need not just the help of librarians but of technology teachers, classroom teachers, administrators, parents,  and policy makers.   This week, please consider writing three “Letters for Libraries.”

As funding tightens everywhere this year, library programs are being reduced and curtailed, squeezed by local budgets, state budgets and now the federal budget.  Yet at the same time the information needs of our students are growing.  Libraries are the learning hubs where students have access, guidance, partners in learning, collaborative spaces and global learning opportunities.

Yet, President Obama’s recent budget has eliminated school library funding grants.   We need your help.  Students need your help.

Please take some time this week to participate in a “Letters for Libraries” drive and send your voice to legislators.  It’s easy–just check out the wiki linked above, commit yourself to writing three letters to support school library funding this week and if you want, add yourself to the Letters for Libraries wiki map.

The wiki provides more information about the cuts as well as a sample letter if needed.  Or share your own stories–the ways your own library is impacted by funding cuts or how it impacts students and teachers positively.

Congress is meeting this week to discuss refunding the Elementary and Secondary Education Act so your support right now is critical.  Ask Congress to support funding the Improving Literacy for School Libraries and to include specific support for school libraries in ESEA funding.

Your students need you.

(Postscript:  It’d also be a great week to write in support of the National Writing Project, another very successful program whose funds are yet again in danger of being cut).