Syracuse educator at forefront of national charge: 'Libraries change lives'

Syracuse educator at forefront of national charge: 'Libraries change lives'

Syracuse.com: 3.30.2014 by Sean Kirst

The conversation happened only because of a mutual friend, a guy from North Carolina, who told Kim Scott: "I know someone you should really meet." Scott is managing partner of Literacy Powerline in Syracuse, and her friend told her about this woman with an absolute passion for libraries whose interests pointed to the same larger goals.

He provided Scott with an email address. She was startled when it ended with "@syr.edu."

Barbara Stripling, Scott realized, was already here.

That is really how a nationwide initiative on libraries got its birth in Central New York. The email address led Scott to Stripling, former director of library services for the New York City public schools. This was in 2012, after Stripling accepted a position as an assistant professor in Syracuse University's School of Information Studies.

She had won election as incoming president for the American Library Association and its 57,000 members. Stripling and Scott got together for coffee at the Starbucks on Marshall Street. As their friend predicted, they immediately realized their missions overlapped. Stripling was especially intrigued by a "Right to Literacy" campaign that Scott helped develop a few years ago.

It gave Stripling an idea. Even before she took over as ALA president, she assembled a committee and crafted a plan that laid out some fundamental guarantees:

The Declaration for the Right to Libraries.  READ MORE !