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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 22, 2004

SCHUMER SECURES $75,000 FOR IONA COLLEGE LIBRARY

Funding included in new Senate and House FY05 Omnibus Appropriations bill

Funds will go towards technology upgrades at the Ryan Library on Iona College’s campus

US Senator Charles E. Schumer today announced that Congress passed the FY05 Omnibus Appropriations bill which included $75,000 for technology upgrades at Iona College’s Ryan Library. The funding was included in the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education portion of the bill. The bill now heads to the President for his signature.

“In this day and age we have to give students access to the latest technology so that they have the best tools to compete in today’s workforce,” Schumer said. “Iona College has a long tradition of high quality education and I know that this funding for technology upgrades at Ryan Library will serve thousands of students whether they are studying the technology itself or learning a foreign language.”

As the center of academic life on the Iona campus, Ryan Library serves over 220,000 patrons annually. Iona’s innovative Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELTIC), housed in Ryan Library, serves as a small business incubator for women and minority entrepreneurs. The funding will be used for technology upgrades including digitizing collections of general and ongoing interest to members of the Iona Community; purchasing electronic collections; video conferencing for classroom and library presentations; and satellite TV for expanding access to information broadcast from foreign-language and other educational sites.

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