Library Funding Finally Passed, Includes CDA II

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

Federal funding for public library programs will increase slightly next year, as will money to buy school-library books, under the fiscal 1999 budget signed into law last week. The library funding was held up as the president and lawmakers tangled over a massive catchall spending bill finally approved just before Congress adjourned.

The money for public libraries comes through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), which was funded at $166.2 million, nearly $10 million more than last year. The increase, however, will not go toward state grants, which make up the bulk of the program, but to National Leadership Grants, and some of the funding is earmarked for specific projects, according to the American Library Association Washington Office.

Title VI of the Education and Secondary Education Act received $375 million, $25 million more than last year. This money can be used by schools to build library collections and buy instructional materials. The omnibus spending package also authorized $260 million for the new Reading Excellence Act, Congress's reworking of the America Reads literacy initiative originally proposed by President Clinton. The revamped program focuses more on teacher training than on the corps of volunteer tutors originally envisioned by the president, said Carol Henderson, Executive Director of ALA's Washington Office.

Finally, the omnibus spending package includes a controversial measure to prevent children from viewing pornography on the Web. The Child Online Protection Act introduced by Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH), requires commercial websites to verify that users are adults before distributing material deemed "harmful to minors." The law's supporters say it will meet the constitutional tests not met by the 1996 Communiations Decency Act (CDA), overturned by the Supreme Court. But opponents have dubbed the measure CDA II, and several organizations last week filed suit to overturn it.