I Am Reading Sunspot Jungle

"A life lived in a simulation is still a life." Emily St John Mandel, Sea of Tranquillity

In response to the proposed elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, American Library Association President Julie Todaro said the Trump Administration is using the wrong math when it comes to libraries. The nation’s more than 120,000 public, school, academic and special libraries are visited more than 1.4 billion times a year by hundreds of millions of Americans across the country, Todaro said. More than 80 major corporations and trade associations called libraries “critical national infrastructure” in a letter to U.S. senators. “To those who say that the nation cannot afford federal library funding, the American Library Association, American businesses and millions of Americans say emphatically we cannot afford to be without it,” she said.

Trump Budget Draws Reaction from Inside, Outside Congress, George Nelson

Use ALA’s Legislative Action Center today to ask your Senators to sign both the LSTA and IAL letters and show their support for federal library funding. Many Members of Congress will only sign such a letter if their constituents ask them to, so it’s up to you to help save LSTA and IAL from elimination or significant cuts.

Five minutes of your time could help preserve over $210 million in library funding at risk.

We have a little time left to call! As of this morning, 34 senators have signed the LSTA letter and 31 have signed IAL.

(via libraryadvocates)

It’s still National Library Week. You should be especially nice to a librarian today, or tomorrow. Sometime this week, anyway. Probably the librarians would like tea. Or chocolates. Or a reliable source of funding.

Neil Gaiman (via ireadpastmybedtime)

"Sometimes information about the Library gets out" she said slowly. 'not just in conversations like this. Librarians are observed, or they talk too much, or maybe the Fae are involved." … "And often when this does happen, this information ends up being recorded in works of - well, fiction."

Library demonstration at the British Library. Today at Midday.

Falling in Love with Hominids

Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, Skin Folk) has been widely hailed as a highly significant voice in Caribbean and American fiction...

I have read this and now I have to go find more by Nalo! 

"You are capable of anything because you are so bad at everything!" Everything Everywhere All At Once

Today, the Trump administration plans to release their full budget proposal for FY 2018. As expected, the proposal effectively eliminates federal library funding, including cutting the IMLS budget by 90%. You can read ALA’s statement here.

Ready to take action? Find out if your senators have signed the LSTA and IAL “Dear Appropriator” letters in support of federal library funding, and if not, give them a call today. There are talking points and background information available on our website or you can use the call script on 5calls.org.

Books didn’t make me wallow in darkness, darkness made me wallow in books.

Jackson Pearce

Book Geek Quote #757

(via j-k-reading)