I thought  Maine had so very little funding for public library renovation and construction until a colleague from Illinois emailed me that his state distributed just barely more.  While Illinois has a progressive public library system structure that Maine does not have,  that state suffers from the same Death Valley of construction funding as Maine and other states.

The mechanism to get federal dollars for library construction to local libraries exists.  The Library Services and Technology Act, a grants program administered by the Institute of Museums and Library Services, is the kind of program which passes federal money to state libraries.  It used to be called the Library Services and Construction Act, how about that?  Of course, that act was plagued by far too many arguments over which programs to support or not and the value of those programs.  What was important to Nebraska might not have much impact in Rhode Island.

Why can’t a new LSCA or a Library Construction Act be created to solely address federal funding of public library construction?  State library agencies would create an evaluation team to score project submissions from the fields.  The Maine State Library is already doing  exactly this with its New Century Grants for renovation and construction.  New Century is a bond issue voted on by Maine voters that dedicates money for state cultural agencies.  Alas, the amount that the Maine State Library awarded to 16 libraries was just shy of $500,000.  Can’t buy many bricks or much mortar with that kind of money. 

Is anyone in Washington listening?