May 1st was Library Legislative Day in Washington, DC, hosted by ALA. This annual event has been held for 26 years. This is an opportunity for librarians, trustees, and library advocates to speak to members of Congress with a united voice on issues of importance to libraries and librarians. Theresa Paré, President of NHLA, Randy Brough, Legislative Chair of NHLA and I visited with legislative staff members of Senators Gregg and Smith and Representatives Sununu and Bass. Our meetings were fruitful, and we had an opportunity to make each of them aware of the federal funding issues that impact libraries in New Hampshire. The primary support for libraries from the federal government comes from legislation that was first enacted in 1956. In its current form, LSTA provides money for statewide programs, which benefits all libraries and individual grants to libraries for demonstration projects. Next year is the time for reauthorization of LSTA. The discussions with our Delegation will center on getting them to support reauthorization with an increase in funding. The current appropriation is $170 million, which supports library programs in all 50 states. Next year's goal is $500 million. This will have a dramatic impact on New Hampshire and our ability to support an expansion of programs. New Hampshire is hopeful that Congress will see that for a modest amount of money spectacular progress can be made in libraries around the country. Libraries have been doing wonderful things with the federal money provided to them for more than 40 years. New Hampshire has provided access to comprehensive databases to all our citizens. Using federal funds to demonstrate its value, we now have more than half the funding coming from the state for this project.

Michael York, State Librarian