ALA Washington Office

1615 New Hampshire Ave NW
1st Floor
Washington DC 20009-2520
Phone : 202-628-8410
Toll Free Number: 1-800-941-8478
Fax : 202-628-8419

Mission

The American Library Association's Washington Office was established in 1945 to represent libraries on Capitol Hill, and now consists of the Office of Government Relations (OGR) and the Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP).

ALA Washington Office in the News

04.30 Library e-book lending hurt by publisher restrictions

04.25 Update: ALA Asks Librarians To Oppose Cybersecurity Bill

04.24 American Library Association Comes Out Against CISPA; Why They Are Heroes

04.17 Government is being allowed to tread on us

04.16 Libraries, publishers struggle over e-books boom

04.16 Internet Groups Launch Anti-CISPA Protest

04.11 ALA Report Prescribes a Digital Detox

ALA Washington Office News and Media Archives

District Dispatch

District Dispatch is the official blog of the American Library Association’s Washington Office. If you want to know what’s going on in Washington from the library perspective, this is the one page you need to bookmark, rss, or subscribe to for email updates.

The Little Red Book

Libraries: The Place of Opportunity (pdf)
Ensuring that librarians deliver quality library services to the public impacts many issues. For this reason, the ALA Washington Office offers this helpful guide to highlight these issues for non-librarian audiences. In "Libraries: The Place of Opportunity," you'll find out which issues concern libraries most and how those issues impact the public. This resource also includes information on how library users can join our efforts to build coalitions and promote the role libraries play in our communities.

Legislative Scorecards

dome Legislative Scorecard
The Legislative Scorecard outlines votes and support of legislation that is important to and has an impact on the library community. We hope you will use this scorecard as a tool to gauge your elected official's support of library related legislation.

E-Gov Toolkit

Government agencies at the local, state, and federal level are increasingly moving online to provide services directly to the public, resulting in new opportunities as well as challenges for the nation’s libraries. Recognizing the importance of this development, the American Library Association (ALA) Committee on Legislation (COL) works with members from all types of libraries to assist them in determining national public policy priorities and in designing local programs and services that reflect current E-Government practices. COL’s E-Government Subcommittee works with various ALA units to consider federal legislation opportunities and assess the impact of E-Government services on local libraries. The Subcommittee produced this toolkit with tips and guidance to assist librarians in planning, managing, funding and promoting E-Government services. The ALA Washington Office also maintains an E-Government site on ALA Connect that contains background, sources, and information on legislative and other activities of the Subcommittee.

Confronting the Future: Strategic Visions for the 21st Century Public Library

Confronting the Future: Strategic Visions for the 21st Century Public Library (pdf)
American libraries will confront formidable challenges during the next few decades of the 21st century. Both the media and technologies they deploy will continue the digital transformation that has already eroded or swept away in years what had lasted for decades or centuries. Nor is the rate of change slowing. The new media and technologies are enabling a steady flow of genre- and usage-changing innovations, and institutions drawing on these disruptive changes are competing with the library in its most fundamental roles. Libraries also are challenged by the financial constraints facing the agencies that support them, as well as shifts in the nature and needs of library users. If libraries are to evolve rapidly enough to meet these challenges, they will have to make careful and difficult strategic decisions and persevere in implementing those decisions.

Responsibilities

The ALA Washington Office provides executive leadership and administrative support to OGR and OITP, in addition to conducting media outreach and public relations efforts. The Washington Office also builds coalitions and partnerships with Washington-based representatives of other groups with interests similar to the library community.