One of the largest providers of educational materials and technology solutions recently announced it is intensifying its support of K-12 school libraries and librarians by partnering with EveryLibrary, a Chicago-based political action committee dedicated to advocating for libraries and librarians at the state level. The Follett-EveryLibrary partnership will initially focus its work with school library associations in six states: Illinois, Washington, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Florida, and Mississippi. This interesting news came to us in a press release from Follett.

The goals will be to bring back school librarians to schools and expand funding equitably across schools and districts. Follett’s support of the initiative will allow EveryLibrary to execute targeted outreach and activism, and bring attention to pending bills in state legislatures, which are calling for more librarians in each school. The partnership will also be beneficial to school library associations by addressing ongoing cuts that state budget choices are forcing on schools and districts.

This comes after the President’s proposed zero funding for libraries in his FY2018 budget. Many are stepping up and out in support of libraries, not just for children, but for adults and professionals as well.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.