Who doesn’t love policy?

I wanted to mention a couple of items that have come across my desk this week that I think will be of interest to you:

Katie Anderson, our stellar youth services consultant, has completed the 2013-2014 Ready to Read Grant Program report. This report is packed with information that I can use when I make my budget presentation to the Legislature and that you can use when you share with your legislators and local officials all the great work libraries are doing for kids with state general funds.

This week the Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the availability of the Fiscal Year 2012 Public Library Survey. This is the result of all the work you, and your colleagues in other states, do to report public library statistics to the State Library. Those statistics are combed through by our stellar state data coordinator, Ann Reed, and then submitted to IMLS. I would draw particular attention to the one pager on Oregon Public Libraries.

The American Library Association-Office for Information Technology released a discussion draft of “A National Public Policy Agenda for Libraries and the Policy Revolution! Initiative”. The draft will be discussed at the ALA Midwinter meeting in Chicago on February 1st and feedback can be sent to oitp[at]alawash[dot]org until February 27th.

I am listening to The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin, another of her amazing long journeys through history. This one follows Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, McClure’s Magazine, and the progressive era of the early 20th century. Fascinating!