Draft Letter to COSLAs FY12 SLAA

December 27, 2012

Dear Chief Officer:
The purpose of this letter is to request your participation in the State Library Administrative Agencies
(SLAA) Survey (formerly known as the State Library Agencies Survey (StLA)). These data are vital to
advancing library services in the United States and that is the core mission of the Institute of Museum and
Library Services (IMLS). We look forward to working with the library community to keep this program
strong.
This survey is the 18th in a series of successful SLAA surveys administered through a cooperative effort
of the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA), the American Institutes for Research (AIR, the
data collection agent), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). IMLS is authorized to
collect these data under the Museum and Library Services Act of 2010 as stated in section 210, Policy
Research, Analysis, Data Collection, and Dissemination.
The FY 2012 SLAA Survey content is identical to FY 2010 (IMLS anticipates revising the survey content
for the FY 2014 data collection). The SLAA Survey is a web-based application that may be accessed only
by the staff person you designate as the Key Holder. The Key Holder will be responsible for the data
submission. We strongly urge you to appoint the survey respondent as the Key Holder. Please designate
the Key Holder now and e-mail the name to AIR at SLAA@air.org. Also, please forward the
enclosed materials and instructions to your Key Holder as soon as possible. To ensure the timeliness
of the survey, we will contact you again if your Key Holder does not register within a few weeks.
Key dates on the FY 2012 SLAA Survey schedule are:
 Data collection begins:
January 14, 2013
 John Lorenz Award:
February 22, 2013 *
 Survey close-out:
March 8, 2013 **
*The survey must be submitted by this date to receive the John Lorenz Award for Timely and
Accurate Submission of SLAA Data.
**This is the final survey submission date.
As in past years, the Key Holder will request your sign-off of the survey data submission to certify its
accuracy. Once the Key Holder submits their data, you will receive an automatic email with the survey
link, your username, and password. Please log in to the survey and certify the accuracy of the data.
Technical assistance for your data submission will be available from the SLAA Help Desk at AIR. If you
need any additional information or have any questions, please contact AIR at 1-866-261-2295 or at
SLAA@air.org.
IMLS will provide tabulations of the final data in a report and a copy will be mailed to you as soon as it is
available. The final data file and related data products will be available on the IMLS web site at
www.imls.gov/statistics.

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no person should be asked to respond to a collection
of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this
information collection is 3137-0072. The time required to complete this information collection is
estimated to average 26 hours per response, including the time to review instructions, search existing data
resources, gather the data needed, and complete and review the information collection. If you have any
comments concerning the accuracy of the time estimate or suggestions for improving this form, please
write directly to LibraryStats@imls.gov. If you have comments or concerns regarding the status of your
individual submission of this form, please write directly to SLAA@air.org. The Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) has approved this voluntary data collection through October 31, 2013.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this very important effort.

Sincerely,

Carlos A. Manjarrez
Associate Deputy Director for Research and Statistics

Enclosures:

Key Holder Packet