New School Library Books Coming to Chicago and Hopes for $20 Million to Buy More

Staff -- School Library Journal, 11/1/1998

Chicago's 625 school libraries are filled with books like Exciting Careers for the 1970s and fiction titles populated only by white suburbanites. There's been no real influx of cash for school libraries since federal funding for new books ended in 1975, according to Ann Carlson Weeks, director of the Department of Libraries and Information Services for the Chicago Public Schools.But in September, the future of the city's school libraries got brighter: The district announced a preliminary plan for a $20-million fund-raising campaign, and the school board allocated $500,000 for library books. The fund-raising campaign got a boost when U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) offered to serve as chairman and donate his $2,140 congressional pay raise to launch it. The $500,000 and the hoped-for $20-million will be added to the district's matching grant program, Weeks said, in which schools have to spend their own money in order to receive grants.