Save LAPL Campaign Reminds Lawmakers To Protect the Los Angeles Public Library
WHAT: SaveLAPL.org site, which in 2008 successfully protested Mayor Villaraigosa's Proposed $1-Per-Book Fee and negative book buying budget, comes back online to defend the library from further deep budget cuts
WHERE: http://www.savelapl.org
As the city faces the biggest financial crisis in decades, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council have some tough decisions to make. The city's libraries are on the chopping block along with other services, which is why a previously successful grassroots community website, SaveLAPL.org, has come back online to again allow concerned citizens, with a single click, to email the Mayor and every member of City Council voicing their support for keeping libraries open and staffed with qualified professionals.
The SaveLAPL.org website is no stranger to the LA budget battlefields. In 2008, its community tools were successful in reversing a proposed $1 per book inter-library loan fee, branch closures, staff firings and a freeze on book purchases. The website is built using the open source Drupal content management system that was originally created for the Howard Dean presidential campaign.
SaveLAPL founder Kim Cooper says, "The last time we mobilized SaveLAPL to protect the library, the outpouring of community support made a big impact on City Council. Bernard Parks got up to say he couldn't check his email without being overwhelmed with messages from passionate library fans, and he definitely was getting the message. So we're calling on the community to once again visit SaveLAPL.org and with one easy click send their email supporting LA's public libraries to Mayor Villaraigosa and all members of City Council. Show them that you care!"
SaveLAPL.org isn't the only website helping to get the word out about protecting library budgets -- there is also the informative site sponsored by the Librarian's Guild union (www.SaveTheLibrary.org ), which includes social media links, background info and printable petitions that can be circulated at schools, farmers' markets and in libraries.
The SaveLAPL.org website was launched by Kim Cooper and Richard Schave, the L.A. writers and social historians behind Esotouric bus adventures, LAVA -The Los Angeles Visionaries Association and the 1947project time travel blogs. This preservation campaign follows successful campaigns to Save the 76 Ball and to have writer Charles Bukowski's East Hollywood bungalow named a historic-cultural monument. They also promoted the use of goats as ecologically-sound brush clearing machines, prior to the city's introduction of herds to clear Angels Knoll in Downtown LA. Now they again turn their organizing efforts to protecting the Library they grew up in and still use constantly in their daily life and work.
Originally launched in April 2008, and revived in March 2010, www.savelapl.org is galvanizing the support of thousands of library users and community organizers, who are again using the site to send their urgent emails to the Mayor and City Council. The message is clear: keep the Library free!
SaveLAPL is a project of LAVA The Los Angeles Visionaries Association.
http://www.lavatransforms.org
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