Given the current revenue situation for the state, we have speeded production of our informational factsheets for the Washington State Library. These factsheets are available for your use and provide information on how the State Library has directly benefited your libraries and the residents who use your libraries. These factsheets are arranged by legislative district.

The fact sheets for 2010 are available at: http://www.sos.wa.gov/library/libraries/projects/factsheets/.

You will note that we have used a somewhat longer format this year.  Not only do we have additional projects to showcase such as Downloadable Audiobooks, we have also added a section on return in investment in the Washington State Library.

The return on investment section notes, for instance, that $1.00 invested in Washington State Library state funding, and counted as Maintenance of Effort, returns $1.94 in federal library funding.

It shows that our partnership with libraries across the state and with NoaNet, our public utility district broadband partner, has returned over $138,800,000 in federal broadband grants to Washington.

It shows that our efforts to work closely with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has resulted in over $2,000,000 in funding for use as broadband match, and for use with our Renew Washington program.

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact us.

The FCC has announced approximately 20 workshops as one step in development of a national broadband plan. If you are interested in attending one or more of the workshops, you may do so in webinar format. Cisco WebEx software is used as the platform for each webinar. Since several workshops are conducted each day, you may also wish to review the proceedings of the workshops once they are posted. This e-mail simply alerts you that these workshops begin this week and run through early September. The workshop schedule, current on August 9, 2009, is attached for your reference. More information follows or you may follow the link to the FCC broadband planning pages, http://www.broadband.gov/.

Welcome to Broadband.gov

The Recovery Act authorizes the FCC to create the National Broadband Plan, that “shall seek to ensure that all people of the United States have access to broadband capability and shall establish benchmarks for meeting that goal.” This website contains information on the FCC National Broadband Plan. Please visit www.fcc.gov for more information about other FCC efforts, or browse the “Initiatives” section of this web site to learn what exciting efforts other agencies are pursuing to support the goals of the Recovery Act. Learn More

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Linda Schatz of EdTech Strategies, LLC conducted an webinar through ALA this morning, Wednesday August 5, 2009. This webinar contains tips and advice on completing the application process for BTOP Public Computing Center and Sustainable Adoption Applications. The webinar presents practical advice including:

• when to register;
• what information do you need in advance of filling out the application online;
• reminders to use the Broadband USA site at http://broadbandusa.sc.egov.usda.gov/apply.htm for registering and applying and not to use Grants.gov for either registration or applying;
• tips on how to fill out the application correctly;
• the relationship between E-Rate and BTOP funding;
• many other tips and much other advice.

The presentation is posted on ALA’s Know Your Stimulus Site under the Broadband Resources link. On the Broadband Resources page look for the Guidelines and Strategies heading. Here you will find “Linda Schatz’s Nuts and Bolts Webinar Slide Deck (ppt, pdf)”. Both PowerPoint and Adobe Reader (pdf) versions are available.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is working in partnership with the Corporation for National & Community Service, to get museums and libraries involved in this national volunteer initiative. I encourage libraries and museums throughout the country to use this initiative to engage new volunteers and to encourage new projects.

How can you get involved? Post your local volunteer opportunities online at www.serve.gov, and encourage community members to visit the web site to find volunteer opportunities. Encourage your staff to volunteer and partner with other organizations in your community to support volunteering. And plan with others to make September 11, the last day of this summer initiative, a day of service and remembrance.

To learn more about the initiative, please visit http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/initiatives/summer.asp. Thank you for all you do to ensure that your community has access to great museum and library services and resources! We have a unique opportunity to come together and solve our nation’s most vexing problems.

Yes, library opportunities are available within Washington. See the following search screen:

Interests for attending the meeting fell into three basic areas: 1) a desire for more information about the NTIA grant program; 2) the ability to identify potential partners for an application; and 3) a desire to partner with the Communities Connect Network in their grant application.

Marc Baldwin, Executive Policy Advisory, Washington State Office of the Governor, re-iterated the Governor’s priorities for the federal stimulus funding which includes broadband stimulus funding. These are:

• Smart use: In the area of broadband, uses which advance the interests of the State of Washington based on the work of the high-speed internet working group and the governor’s broadband advisory council. A further clarification of state strategy in the area of broadband and stimulus funding should be available by mid-July.
• As much stimulus funding as possible: in all categories of funding including broadband to further the needs and interests of the citizens of the State.
• Accountability: Track the use of the funding closely to ensure it is wisely and properly used.

He indicated that their reading of timelines would find the Notice of Funding Availability for the first round of funding out in early July 2009.

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The latest news compiled from the ALA conference calls from May 20th and May 21st. If you participated in one of the calls this week, please feel free to post your own comments about what was said and what is important to take away.

From the COSLA/ALA call (May 20, 2009)

The call was facilitated by Melanie Anderson (Associate Director, Office of Government Relations) and Alan Inouye (Director, Office for Information Technology Policy), both with the ALA Washington Office.

State Stabilization

The applications for state stabilization funding for sixteen states have been approved by the US Department of Education. A list of those states and their applications for initial funding may be found at http://www.ed.gov/programs/statestabilization/resources.html. To receive funding for state stabilization funding, an application from the state must be received by July 1^st.

Broadband Stimulus Funding

A bit more is known about broadband stimulus funding. The ALA Washington Office still expects the federal Notice of Funding Availability for broadband funding under the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to be released near the end of June. Information on the Department of Commerce Broadband Technologies Opportunities (BTOP) Program Recovery Plan may be found at http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/program-plan&program_id=5517. Application review will take place in a September – December 2009 timeframe. This plan indicates that the initial awards will be made by December 31, 2009 and that all awards will be made by September 30, 2010. Dates for the second and third rounds of solicitation for applications are also tentatively listed.

Applications will likely need to include information on how the assessment of need has been determined, what’s the project purpose (ALA indicated that this is harder than it sounds), how the project will be sustained, what is the match (ALA indicated that requesting a waiver for the match would put the application at a disadvantage).

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Three calls and one meeting later, I’m still not sure what is significant enough to talk about. If you participated in one of the calls, or the meeting, please feel free to post your own comments about what was said and what is important to take away.

From the COSLA/ALA call (May 6, 2009)

• For those of you attending ALA Annual, sounds like several sessions related to Stimulus Funding and Broadband will be conducted by ALA staff. A Washington Office update will be conducted on Saturday morning, a town hall meeting will be conducted on Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning will feature a session on the federal Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for broadband grants, and Monday should be yet another session of interest.
• Speaking of the federal Notice of Funding Availability, the best guess at the moment is that NTIA and RUS grant guidelines will be released in late June (ALA staff) or early July (Wa St Governor’s Office staff). NTIA and RUS will apparently coordinate the release of information on the broadband grants. Local workshops and webinars (or something done remotely) will be two of the methods the agencies may use to get the information out to prospective applicants.
• ALA speculates that the federal Notice of Funding Availability could be fairly hefty ranging from a couple hundred pages to several hundred pages. ALA staff will dive in to create an overview and will develop their own observations on how to approach these grants. If the NOFA documents are substantial, this may take a few days for ALA to digest, analyze and summarize the guidance information.
• Funding from NTIA should be in the form of grants; from RUS may be either grants or loans. Some speculation exists that RUS funds will be used to fund the backlog of projects on their waiting lists. Don’t know if this is accurate. If you are interested in RUS funding for rural broadband, you should be prepared to move forward quickly until you hear otherwise.
• ALA staff are creating screencasts to aid libraries in navigating the funding opportunities available under federal stimulus. At least one is available now and others will be available shortly. Link to the site for this information.

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) provides for premium reductions and additional election opportunities for health benefits under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, commonly called COBRA. Eligible individuals pay only 35 percent of their COBRA premiums and the remaining 65 percent is reimbursed to the coverage provider through a tax credit. The premium reduction applies to periods of health coverage beginning on or after February 17, 2009 and lasts for up to nine months for those eligible for COBRA during the period beginning September 1, 2008 and ending December 31, 2009 due to an involuntary termination of employment that occurred during that period. The TAA Health Coverage Improvement Act of 2009, enacted as part of ARRA, also made changes with regard to COBRA continuation coverage.

For more information http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/cobra.html.

The Association of Washington Cities (AWC) provides information on the web to help cities become aware of federal, state, and foundation grant opportunities. This information is located at AWC City Issues – Grants.

The web page links to both current and archived issues of AWC’s electronic Grant Alert Newsletter and also to other grant resources. The newsletter appears to be published on an occasional basis averaging two or three issues per month. AWC has compiled a list of the most frequently accessed infrastructure grants and loans. This information is available for download in an Excel spreadsheet format. The spreadsheet provides a short description of the grant and a link to the relevant grant website.

In addition, AWC is following federal stimulus funding and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Information is organized under several topical headings. These headings are general information, community development and housing, economic development, energy and environment, health care, infrastructure and transportation, labor, public safety, and telecommunications. This information is located at AWC Legislative Services – Fiscal.

Whether you work in a city library or for a library district, this information may be of interest. It may also be of interest to other city departments.