Library leaders lobby Illinois congressmen over funding

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Updated: February 20, 2012 5:42PM

Part of their job is to hush people who are talking too loud. But once a year, Illinois’ librarians serve their elected officials breakfast, and take the opportunity to raise their voices.

The Illinois Library Association held its 22nd annual President’s Day breakfast for state and federal lawmakers Monday at The Arboretum Club in Buffalo Grove, and took the opportunity to do what most other lobbies are doing this winter: urge their representatives to protect their funding.

“We have gone through not ‘growing pains’ but ‘shrinking pains,’” said Kip Kolkmeier, the ILA’s legislative consultant, as he described the consolidation of the libraries’ services.

Numerous elected officials spoke, almost all giving general promises that libraries were high priorities. Congressman Bob Dold, R-10th, told the crowd that he saw them as a key for economic recovery.

“If somebody’s out of work, where’s one of the first places they go?” he asked.

The crowd did not take the question as rhetorical, and dozens of librarians collectively murmured “The library.” The group included officials from Evanston, Deerfield, Park Ridge, Lincolnwood and numerous districts in between.

Kolkmeier and Bob Doyle, the ILA’s executive director, briefed the legislators about bills in Springfield and Washington that affected libraries. Some items would restrict districts’ abilities to levy taxes; others would reduce the number of grants they have to pursue.

State Rep. Sid Mathias, R-53rd, noted that his colleagues in Springfield had written bills that, if passed, would also force local taxing bodies to pay larger portions of their retirees’ pensions. He joked that how local officials would make that work, if it became law, was “above my pay grade.”

Kolkmeier also took issue with a bill in Springfield from Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-8th, which would require some users of computers at libraries and schools to present identification, which an employee would then record. Besides raising concerns about privacy rights, Kolkmeier noted that the law would turn libraries into rich databases that marketers would love to mine.

“This information is collected for one reason and one reason only: so you can track what people search, and search habits,” he said.

Numerous legislators said they would keep the ILA’s concerns in mind this year. State Rep. Daniel Biss, D-17th, said that in a world of fewer personal connections, the library was still a place where people could learn about each other.

“These are the exact moments when it’s most important for society to come together,” Biss said. “Everything that happens at the public library is about building community.”

State Rep. Carol Sente, D-59th, said legislators and library leaders would build a lot of connections this year — while bartering about funding.

“In a hard time, we do have to look for compromise,” she said.