Get involved in supporting Australian libraries
As I mentioned last week, there are many activities happening in the advocacy space for ALIA and our members at the moment. Now it’s your turn to get involved.
You can now register your name to be added to a separate short ALIA submission that will be provided to Julia Gillard for the Inquiry into School Libraries and Teacher Librarians. This will include the names of many other library supporters, not just library staff. We encourage you all to spread the news about registering for this submission. We hope that teachers, parents, carers, friends and grandparents from all around Australia will add their name to this submission, to show their support for school libraries and teacher librarians. As we welcome some TL’s back from school holidays this week, it is a perfect time to send around this link to your networks. Names must be registered to us by Friday 12pm on the 16th April 2010 to be included in the document. This particular submission/letter will be a clear sign of wide-spread support from community members for school libraries. ALIA and ASLA will be submitting additional comprehensive submissions to include specific recommendations that relate to the Terms of Reference. All the information is linked from this page http://www.alia.org.au/schoollibraries
If you live in Western Australia we also encourage you to write to your local member about public library funding. This webpage http://www.alia.org.au/publiclibraries outlines all the details. Take the opportunity to tell your politicians the wonderful stories of the important role that libraries play in your state. Other library associations will also be writing to the Western Australian government on the issue.
Sue Hutley, ALIA Executive Director