May 17, 2011

The email I posted to the OASL listserv this morning about the elimination of funding for the this year's Improving Literacy Through School Libraries grant program generated many responses asking if that affects funding for OSLIS and the subscription databases (Gale & LearningExpress).  The short answer is no.

Here's the long answer.  OSLIS, the subscription databases, and several other statewide library programs are funded with LSTA money.  The Library Services and Technology Act allocates federal money for libraries; that money is overseen by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and distributed to state library agencies.  In our case, that's the Oregon State Library.  The allocation for this year, FY2011, was reduced, but not significantly enough to affect programs.  We are still able to fund OSLIS, the databases, competitive grants, etc. for next school year.
           
At this point we are optimistic that federal fiscal year 2012 LSTA funding will remain about the same as FY2011.  Should we ever receive significantly less funding and need to make major changes to programs, we would let stakeholders know well before those changes would be implemented.

So, that's good news.

As an FYI, the Oregon State Library, which hosts OSLIS, will have to take it's domain controller offline Wednesday evening starting at 5pm.  It is expected to be back online by 8am Thursday.  I asked if access to OSLIS will be affected, and the answer was that OSLIS might be slow to respond during that time period.

Thanks,
Jen

Jennifer Maurer
School Library Consultant
Library Development
Oregon State Library
250 Winter Street NE
Salem, OR  97301-3950
503-378-5011
jennifer.maurer@state.or.us