National Construction Survey

TSLAC's Library Systems Grants Administrator Chris Jowaisas has asked systems to distribute the following information to all member libraries. Before you read the message, you may need to know the following:

COSLA is an independent organization of the Chief Officers of state and territorial agencies designated as the State Library administrative Agency and responsible for statewide library development.

The link individual libraries should use to complete the survey is http://www.njstatelib.org/LDB/cosla/cosla1.php .

Use the name of your city or county as the "library jurisdiction name."

If you need to look up the State and House districts in which your library is located, go to http://gis1.tlc.state.tx.us/ for answers to " State Senate District Number" and "State Assembly (House) District Number." You can also use that site to look up the U.S. House district in which your library is located, or go to http://www.house.gov/ and complete the zip code look-up box in the upper left-hand corner.

Unless your library has multiple buildings, completing the survey should go quickly; most - if not all - of the 20 (total) questions can be answered in less time than it takes to read the question. Libraries with branches or multiple buildings will need to submit a response for each building.

The deadline for responses from all libraries is August 31, 2007.

Even TSLAC is having to complete the survey.

You may contact Chris Jowaisas at christopher.jowaisas@tsl.state.tx.us or 512/936-2236.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 12:19 PM

M E M O R A N D U M
TO: COSLA Members
From: Norma Blake, New Jersey State Librarian
Subject: National Construction Survey
Date: June 21, 2007

This year, the COSLA Legislative Committee chaired by Ken Wiggins, Connecticut State Librarian, decided that a national library construction survey was needed in order for State Library agencies to compile data on their states' library construction needs. Once compiled, this data would be used by State Library agencies to advocate for federal public library construction funding.

I am pleased to send you two surveys developed by the New Jersey State Library which will enable COSLA to collect this data. The New Jersey State Library IT Department has posted the surveys online.

As discussed at the COSLA meeting in Washington, D.C., please send a letter or email to the libraries in your state, provide them with the following link, http://www.njstatelib.org/LDB/cosla/cosla1.php, and ask them to complete this survey online by August 31st, 2007.

Using the data from these surveys, the New Jersey State Library IT Department will be able to compile a complete report for our use at the fall COSLA meeting.

We appreciate your help with gathering this information so that COSLA can move forward in advocating for federal construction funding.

Norma E. Blake, State Librarian
New Jersey State Library
185 W. State Street
PO Box 520
Trenton, NJ 08625-0520
nblake@njstatelib.org
609-292-6201
fax: 609-292-2746
http://www.blogger.com/www.njstatelib.org