Happy Tuesday Everyone! I just wanted to fill you all in on two important bills that the PA House and Senate would like to pass that would hurt our 2010 funding. The House would like to pass HB 1416 which would take about 6% of our state funding away and decrease the funding that goes to Access PA (which is where we get books from outside of Berks County and from all over the US) as well as Power Library (which is used for research). NOW for the really bad news...Senate Bill/Proposal 850. The PA Senate wants to take away HALF of our state funding, take away Access PA (By the way, the library does receive funding from Access PA) and take away other databases (Power Library, Ask Here PA just to name a few).
What does that mean in 2010 for your small town library? WELL.....it means that we would lost about a quarter of our budget. Without that money we would have to cut hours, cut staff, cut materials bought, cut programming! So......what I am asking of my loyal patrons is this...Write letters, send emails, visit your congress men in person, urge others to write. If you need to find your reps here is the web address to go to http://capwiz.com/paschoolfunding/home. This will not just affect public libraries but all school libraries as well. Thank you.

DID YOU KNOW?
We have a weekly story time for the little ones. Every Monday at 11am, our wonderful Assistant Director/Children's Programmer, Alicea, conducts the story time. She tells tales, sings songs and does crafts with the little ones. Then twice a month on a Thursday night (6:30pm) she or our Library Assistant, Megan, does either a story time or a make & take. Our Make & Takes usually revolve around a holiday that might be coming up.