[New-hampshire-students] Legislative alert - full funding for thedigital talking books

[Harvey, Wayne]

I'll be sending a letter to each of them. Wayne

-----Original Message-----
From: new-hampshire-students-bounces at nfbnet.org
[mailto:new-hampshire-students-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Marie
Johnson
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 1:12 PM
To: New Hampshire NFB State Affiliate Board
Cc: North Country Chapter List; Student List; NHBLIND-TALK; Discussion
List
Subject: [New-hampshire-students] Legislative alert - full funding for
thedigital talking books

Hi everyone, I hope you will consider making a couple of phone calls
this week to support this new letter that has been recently circulated.

Thanks for your help.. Marie



* Congressman Edolphus Towns of New York is planning to circulate a
"Dear Colleague" letter in support of full funding for the digital
talking book conversion project.  As you know this initiative was one of
the NFB's top priorities at the 2008 Washington Seminar.  Now we need to
follow up with members of the House of Representatives and urge them to
sign on to Congressman Towns' letter of support.  The Library of
Congress only asked for $12.5 million to continue the digital conversion
in its fiscal year 2009 budget request.  This is the same amount that
was appropriated in the FY 2008 Legislative Branch Appropriations bill
but is below the original $19.1 that the National Library Service for
the Blind determined would be needed to convert the program from
cassette to the new digital format.  Continual under-funding will turn
what was to be a four-year project into a six-year project, at best.  

 

Congressman Towns' letter asks the Legislative Branch Subcommittee in
the House to include not only the $19.1 million for fiscal year 2009,
but asks that the Subcommittee include an additional $6.6 million to
bring the program back on track for a four-year conversion.  

 

We had many strong reports of support on this issue during Washington
Seminar, and questions about "Dear Colleague" letters.  We now have the
letter and need you to contact your members in the House and ask them to
join in support of the Talking Books program by signing on to
Congressman Towns' letter.  We need to work hard the rest of this week
to get as many cosigners on this letter as possible.  If you have a
member interested in signing on to this letter, advise them to contact
Dana Grayson in Congressman Towns' office.  To be connected with your
member of Congress, please call the Capital switchboard at (202)
225-3121. 

 

 I will send out an email Friday afternoon to update you on our
progress.  Thank you all in advance for your work on this important
initiative to save our library.  

 

Cordially,

 

Jesse Hartle   

Government Programs Specialist

National Federation of the Blind