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National ALA Action Alert for September 2008!

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Please contact your House Representative urging them to vote for S. 2913, the "Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008," as passed by the Senate and considered by the House of Representatives.

Background and Talking Points:

The House and Senate have been considering orphan works legislation that is intended to enable the use of copyrighted works when the copyright owner cannot be found. Over the last week, there have been
many focused discussions concerning how to resolve the key remaining issues in the Senate orphan works legislation, S. 2913. These issues around "best practices" or standards for a qualifying search
for the absent copyright owner have been resolved.  The Senate will consider S. 2913 this afternoon.  The House will then hopefully act on S. 2913 if it is approved by the Senate.

* Please support S. 2913, the "Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008," as approved by the Senate.

* Resolving, or "freeing" orphaned works in our libraries and special collections helps make our historic and culturally significant works available to students, scholars, and the public.

* Currently, orphan works are not being made publicly available for fear of copyright owners coming forward and demanding unknown amounts of compensation.  Despite extensive and costly searches to locate orphan work owners, without a legislative solution, the risk remains too high for our library to make these works publicly available.

SC State Funding Report from Jim Johnson
September 2008

A report in September 27's The State indicates that state revenues are declining and another round of budget cuts this year are probable. John Rainey, Chair of the Board of Economic Advisors (BEA), has said that a reduction of 4% or more is possible when the Budget and Control Board meets October 8. He said "The (revenue) numbers have fallen off the cliff."  Rep. Dan Cooper, Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Hugh Leatherman, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote Governor Mark Sanford saying "We believe it is important for the General Assembly to prepare for spending adjustments".

I thought at this point everyone needs to know where we stand today after the first round of cuts and what agencies are requesting for FY10. As you can see from the discussion below, public libraries and the State Library stand to lose the most. After the dust settles, agencies will probably be re-examining their requests for FY10 with the goal of restoring funds lost.

FY09 Budget Situation/FY10 Budget Requests for South Carolina Libraries

FY09 Budget Situation after 3% budget reduction:

Public Libraries. State Aid for County Libraries was reduced by $347,823 from $2.17 per capita with a minimum grant per county of $60,000 to $2.08 per capita with the same level for a minimum grant. Last year's funding was $2.25 per capita with a $60,000 minimum.

State Library. Funding for DISCUS was reduced by $66,265.

K-12 School Libraries. There were no funds in the budget for FY09, so the 3% cut did not affect school libraries.

Academic Libraries. There was no reduction from the $200,000 appropriated, which was a reduction of $1.8 million from last year for PASCAL.

FY10 Budget Requests:

Public Libraries. Public libraries are seeking an increase of funding to $2.50 per capita with a $60,000 minimum for State Aid to County Libraries. Amount currently needed to achieve this level is $1,228,563. A fall back position is to return to last year's level of $2.25 per capita. Public libraries are also requesting $50,000 per county in lottery funds. This totals $2.3 million. Both of these requests are in the State Library's budget request.

State Library. State Library requests other than the public library requests above include:

DISCUS. $200,000.
Talking Book Services Staff. $206,000.
State Library IT Upgrades. $75,000.
Family Literacy. $15,000.
Education/Cultural Heritage. $10,000.
Services to State Government. $,8,000.
Virtual Business Library. $15,000.
Consumer Health. $4,000.
SchoolRooms. $366,000.

K-12 School Libraries. SCASL retains its goal of $25 per student for library-media center materials. A request of $5 million will be sought next year.  I was not able to confirm with the State Department of Education library media consultant that their budget includes $1 million.

Academic Libraries. The Commission on Higher Education has included $2.3 million its budget request for PASCAL.