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I'm Curious, George…

The other day, my board president came into the library and said that we needed to “get with the program.” She said she had been to a library about the same size as ours in the town where her daughter lives, and that this library has been doing all sorts of interesting events, like a “One Community, One Book” adult reading program, a traveling exhibit about the life of Abraham Lincoln, and that last year they even did a program about Frankenstein!

I would love to get our library involved in something like this, but where would I start? These programs must be expensive, and require lots of technical expertise. What's a little library like mine to do?

Culturally Deprived in Springfield

Dear CD,

How can you be culturally deprived in the city where the Simpsons live?

Seriously, all of the programs you've mentioned originated with ALA's Public Programs Office. This office has been around for nearly two decades, and its mission is to foster cultural programming as an integral part of library service in all types of libraries.

Right now, the Public Programs Office needs help. ALA established the Cultural Communities Fund (CCF) in spring 2003. The reason this endowment fund was born is simple: the office currently receives only about 10% of its million-dollar budget from ALA. The remainder of the office's work is supported by grants from outside funders.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) immediately recognized the merit of this fund, and awarded a challenge grant to CCF of $350,000. Here's the scenario:

• The NEH grant requires ALA to raise $1,050,000 by 2007 to receive the full $350,000 (a 3-to-1 match).
• To date, ALA has raised $110,716 in eligible match and received $88,660 of the challenge grant from NEH.
• ALA must certify a cumulative $377,320 by September, 2005 to release $111,340 available from NEH this year.
• The office still has to raise more than $260,000 this year to hit the goal.

So why doesn't ALA just match the grant? The attorneys for the NEH say ALA can't match the grant itself, that any matching funds have to represent “new” money. So, for example, even though the Public Library Association pledged money for the Fund immediately, that money can't be used in the match.

If you've ever taken advantage of one of these public programs, or if your Friends group has ever sponsored such an event, consider making a contribution here: http://www.ala.org/ccf. You'll be helping to build programming for your library and others like you all over the United States. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm on the Public and Cultural Programs Advisory Committee that supports the office.

Signed,

George "Oliver (Please-Sir-I-Want-Some-More)" Needham

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