march05c.indd


Ber nadette Murphy W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n e  

ALA begins PATRIOT study to measure 
law enforcement activity in libraries 
As homeland security tops the 109th Con­
gress’s list of priorities and parts of the 
PATRIOT Act are scheduled to sunset in 
December 2005, ALA seeks to ensure that 
library patron privacy is preserved. At the 
beginning of the year, ALA initiated a set of 
surveys to assess the impact of the USA PA­
TRIOT Act on America’s libraries and library 
patrons. Working with several teams of aca­
demic researchers, ALA is seeking to quan­
tify and examine contacts by federal law en­
forcement agencies in public and academic 
libraries. 

The results of these surveys will provide 
much­needed information to inform the de­
bate about law enforcement’s role in librar­
ies and the effect that the law enforcement 
activity is having on library users. Preliminary 
results will be made available to members of 
Congress as they debate the status and neces­
sity of the sunset provisions. 

The Web­based surveys, titled  “Impact 
and Analysis of Federal Law Enforcement 
Activity in Academic and Public Libraries,” 
are directed at academic and public library 
administrators. The survey questions will 
examine the contacts being made by law 
enforcement in libraries, how library policies 
have changed since the passage of the USA 
PATRIOT Act, and any resulting changes in 
library patron behavior. The survey instru­
ment has been carefully reviewed by counsel 
for the ALA to ensure that respondents do not 
violate the gag order imposed by the USA 
PATRIOT Act, and the U.S. Department of 
Justice has acknowledged its interest in the 
results of the project. 

The team of researchers working in 
tandem with ALA have selected a diverse 
sample of U.S. public and academic libraries 
reflecting geographic, population, and size 

Bernadette Murphy is communications specialist at ALA’s 
Washington Offi  ce, e-mail: bmurphy@alawash.org 

differences. Administrators of the libraries 
selected for the study will be notified by mail. 
Libraries selected for the survey are strongly 
encouraged to respond. 

The results of the studies will be presented 
as a report at the ALA’s 2005 Annual meeting 
in Chicago. The results may be used to create 
an educational resource for practitioners on 
dealing with federal law enforcement. 

President Bush announces FY2006 
budget: LSTA receives $15 million 
increase 
On February 7th President Bush released his 
$2.5 trillion FY 2006 budget that proposes 
cuts to non­defense, non­homeland security 
spending by nearly one percent. 

Despite the extremely tight fi scal envi­
ronment, the president’s budget requests 
$262,240,000 for the Institute of Museum and 
Library Services, an increase of $21,565,000. 
For the Library Services and Technology Act, 
the budget includes $221,325,000, an increase 
of $15,374,000 from FY 2005. Within that to­
tal is nearly $171 million for Grants to State 
Library Agencies, $26 million for Librarians 
for the 21st Century program, $14 million for 
National Leadership Grants for libraries, and 
$3.675 million for Improving Library Service 
to Native Americans. 

Overall, the president’s FY 2006 budget 
would cut education funding by $530 mil­
lion, or 0.9 percent for a total of $56.0 billion. 
Despite proposed increases for Title I, Striv­
ing Readers Initiative, and special education, 
the budget would cut or eliminate more than 
150 programs, 48 of which are education 
programs. The president proposes cutting 
funding for adult education by $369.7 million, 
or 63 percent, from $585.4 million in FY 2005 
to $215.7 million. 

The budget does not take into account 
the military costs incurred in Iraq and Af­
ghanistan; the price of making the president’s 
first­term tax cuts permanent or his proposed 
overhaul of Social Security. 

March 2005  231 C&RL News 

mailto:bmurphy@alawash.org