Dear Congress, Libraries are important!

Why are libraries so essential? To touch on every aspect of libraries’ importance, we’d be here all day. In short, libraries are business-building, job-creating, workforce-preparing engines of the U.S. economy, and America needs them to thrive. That’s why it is so necessary to advocate for federal library funding as Congress prepares the 2018 fiscal year budget.

Today, Baker & Taylor, along with a handful of other American businesses, unveiled the Corporate Committee for Library Investment, an ad hoc group of companies conceived by Gale, a Cengage company, and the American Library Association. Their goal? To educate Congress and other federal policymakers about the tremendous value of libraries for all kinds of American businesses and taxpayers in an effort to maximize federal library funding.

Now more than ever, America’s public libraries are reaching deep into all facets of the communities they serve offering patrons vital services that are having a profound impact on their lives.
— David Cully, President, Baker & Taylor

To start, the CCLI delivered a letter signed by businesses of all sizes today to all members of Senate that outlines the importance of libraries and asks senators to urge their colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to save library funding—$186.6 million under the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) and $27 million for the Innovative Approaches to Literacy program (IAL), to be exact.

Baker & Taylor has long been committed to supporting communities through literacy. Without libraries, we can’t do that.

To learn more about the CCLI’s mission to save federal library funding, visit their website at www.fundlibraries.com.