Category Archives: Public Relations

DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 14 April 2009 — Today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $5 million grant to the OCLC library cooperative to develop a public information campaign that will help public library leaders heighten awareness of the needs of local libraries and increase support for the services they provide during these challenging times. OCLC will pilot the campaign in select areas of Georgia and Iowa starting this summer as well as a limited number of other communities which will be selected later this spring. Later in the year, OCLC will make available community awareness campaign materials and other guides to assist library leaders throughout the country in their efforts to strengthen support for local libraries.
The current economic crisis has led to dramatic increases in library visitation across the nation, as people rely on libraries for free computer and Internet access to conduct job searches, access government services, learn new workforce skills, and use other resources they can no longer afford at home.
The tightening economy has also put library funding – 80 percent of which comes from local sources – at risk. Many library systems predict deep state and local funding cuts in 2009, a growing burden for the roughly half of all libraries struggling against declining or flat budgets.
Read the full press release.

Governor Dave Heineman’s Website features an announcement posted on February 25, 2009 describing plans for Nebraska’s use of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The announcement states that Gerry Oligmueller, State Budget Administrator, “will coordinate the receipt and expenditure of stimulus funding.”
The Website for Nebraska specific stimulus information is
http://www.Recovery.Nebraska.gov.
The site serves as the State of Nebraska’s portal for informing citizens on the
use of federal stimulus funding received under the federal American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). It will be updated regularly as funding is
received and new projects are announced.

http://www.Recovery.Nebraska.gov allows users to
sign up for RSS feeds, allowing anyone interested to receive automatic updates
as new information is posted to the Website. In addition, those using Twitter, a free web-based social media site, can
sign up to receive Nebraska’s stimulus updates. Twitter allows registered users
to follow information from sources most relevant to them in real-time.

To receive twitter feeds from Recovery.Nebraska.gov, visit
http://twitter.com. Registered
users can search for people, agencies, and organizations using either the site’s
find people function at the top of the page, or the search option at the bottom
of the page. To locate the Recovery.Nebraska.gov feed, search for
http://twitter.com/recoverynegov.
Check the box to start following the feed.

Information resources mentioned in Government Technology Executive News (March 3, 2009) can serve as a resource for those interested in details about the economic stimulus funds, including the OMB document,
Stimulus Spending and Reporting Rules from the OMB
, and the
Mainstreet Economic Recovery Website that should be helpful for local governments.

Additional information on the ARRA from the federal government is available
online at
http://www.recovery.gov.

Please share your ideas about Nebraska libraries and the stimulus funding by clicking on comment below.

OCLC was awarded a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to explore attitudes and perceptions about library funding and to evaluate the potential of a large-scale marketing and advocacy campaign to increase public library funding in the U.S. The findings of this research are now available in the latest OCLC report, From Awareness to Funding: A study of library support in America.
Among the findings from the report:

• Library funding support is only marginally related to library visitation.
• Perceptions of librarians are an important predictor of library funding support.
• Voters who see the library as a “transformational” force as opposed to an “information” source are more likely to increase taxes in its support.

The report suggests that targeting marketing messages to the right segments of the voting public is key to driving increased support for U.S. public libraries.
Purchase a print copy of the report or download a free, electronic version