July 17, 2025

Hi Folks,

As you likely know by now, recent federal funding instability has the potential to affect State Library programs, grants, and services that are paid for with Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds. After initial uncertainty, we did receive our full LSTA 2025 award of $2.6 million. As long as we continue to be able to draw down those LSTA funds, that money will fund current Library Support staff through September 2026 as well as projects and services through at least June 2026.  

What does that mean for OSLIS and the statewide databases through June 2026? 

• The State Library will continue to pay the cost to host the OSLIS website, which will maintain access to the information literacy content and Citation Maker. 
• The Oregon Association of School Libraries will receive its annual statewide project grant to fund the OSLIS Committee’s work, such as creating new videos about the research process and purchasing statewide access to new ebooks about media literacy.  
• The statewide database contract will be renewed, so we will retain access to the Gale databases and the small collection of ebooks.   
• The School Library Consultant position will be funded through September 2026.

The status of LSTA funding beyond June 2026 is uncertain. The current budget bill moving through Congress eliminates LSTA 2026 funding, which applies to our fiscal year starting in July 2026. We are committed to sharing more information via listservs and on the State Library’s “updates” webpage, as it becomes available, so schools have as much notice as possible for making any needed service adjustments or contingency plans.

If you have questions, please reach out. As always, thanks for what you do for students and staff through your school library. 

Best,
Jen

Jen Maurer
School Library Consultant
State Library of Oregon

P.S. Some have asked if Oregon Battle of the Books will receive its annual statewide project grant from the State Library this year, and the answer is yes.