superintendent of schools-- to secure steady funding for school
libraries. Eastin would lobby for funding by carrying with her a
copy of a book recently pulled from a school library's shelves
which proclaimed, "Someday man will walk on the moon" (Jeffus,
2002). After a line-item donation on the state income tax form
met with success, at a time of economic upswing, the California
Public School Library Act was passed in 1998, allocating $158
million per year to school libraries, which averaged just over
$28 per student. During that time, long-neglected collections
were weeded and average copyright dates climbed steadily upward,
from 1972 in 1995 to 1991 by 2003 ("School Libraries," 2007).
Not surprisingly, a principle finding from a study conducted on
the effects of this funding on a central California school
district was that adequate funding substantially enhanced both
the availability of resources to students and the services
provided to them (Archon, 2003). Archon also concluded from his
study that in schoo