World Read Aloud Day: March 9

World Read Aloud Day: March 9, 2011

Celebrate the Power of Words and Stories

and Take Action for Global Literacy

Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name. What would you miss most if you could not read or write? Imagine your world without words.

World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology. By raising our voices together on this day we show the world’s children that we support their future: that they have the right to read, to write, and to share their words to change the world.

Across the globe nearly 171 million children could be lifted out of poverty if they left school with basic reading and writing skills. Quality literacy education is the difference between life and death, prosperity and despair. This is literacy for survival.

Read On @ Your Local Library: CalCat or WorldCat

Bedtime Stories/Read-Alouds - Library Book Lists
DaddyRead: the guide to great read-aloud books
E.B. White Read Aloud Awards
Jim Trelease “Read Aloud Handbook”
Read Aloud America – Building Families of Lifetime Readers
Share a Story – Shape a Future – Read Aloud Resources

Literacy Tribune: March 2011

Literacy Tribune: March 2011
The Adult Learner Network Newsletter

United Literacy, a non-profit organization, provides resources and support to adult literacy learners in the United States. Its aim is to make literacy education accessible and worthwhile for adult learners.

Main Story: Are you at risk for cardiovascular disease?
By Ruth Pereira, MPH, CHES, Health Program Coordinator

A History Lesson: César Chávez
By Cathay Reta, Senior Writer
“Sí, Se Puede,” is the slogan made famous by labor union activist César Chávez

Finance Literacy: Earned Income Tax Credit – Check It Out
By Cathay Reta, Senior Writer
It’s tax time again! The April 15 deadline is almost here

Organization Spotlight: Alaska Literacy Program
By Cathay Reta, Senior Writer

Technology Watch: Nook Color Tablet
By Daniel Pedroza, Writer and Learner
Thinking of purchasing an electronic book (e-Book) to read on your smart phone?

The Literacy Tribune is looking for adult learner writers.
Are you an adult learner ?
Do you want to write ?
Do you want to publish your writing ?

You can write about:
Your road to literacy
Your literacy organization
Literacy resources you like

You can write book reviews, poetry, short stories
You can write articles about health, finance, or technology
You can write just about anything !

A Race to the Bottom - Obama Signs Short-Term Budget Bill That Slashes Education

Obama Signs Short-Term Budget Bill That Slashes Education
Education Week: 3.02.11 by Alyson Klein

Federal funding for literacy eliminated:
House: 335 – 91
Senate: 91 – 9
Signed by the President
$250 million Striving Readers program
$66 million Even Start family-literacy program
$25 million Reading Is Fundamental program
$26 million National Writing Project
$64 million Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships (LEAP) program

The overall package is intended to keep the government running for two more weeks while lawmakers and the White House continue to negotiate a budget plan. The cuts will affect funding for the current fiscal year, which began last October. (Yes, it's fair to say Congress is a little behind schedule.) READ MORE !

Support American Libraries - The Library is America's last truly socialized institution and you're about to lose it

The Library is America's last truly socialized institution and you're about to lose it
DailyKos.com: 2.28.11 by Democrats Ramshield
(Written by an American expat living in the European Union)

Did you know that the library is America's last truly socialized institution and that everyday you come a bit closer to losing it! As a male who is a business librarian, (that is to say someone who holds graduate degrees in library science and an MBA degree in marketing), I understand very well that fee for service in America's library systems are creating a class of information have-nots. For some of you this means that your children aren't going to be able to read as well. It also means that as voters in a democracy, you will no longer be as well informed without full library services. As the series, the American dream vs the European dream which I was able to generously publish with the support of the Daily Kos community, we have seen that we cannot depend on the plutocrat owned radio and television media. Sometimes we have to go to print sources, even international print sources of the variety and scope that you can't possibly afford as an individual to subscribe to them all. Additionally libraries make online databases available to their patrons that allow you with the touch of a button to read international media sources from around the globe. You're in the process of losing this all and a lot more.

Now let's ask why should you be interested in defending America's last truly socialized institution? Well, let's get down to it shall we? So you don't think the library is a completely socialized institution. Well, let's talk about the theory of a library for just one minute, which is everyone who walks in the door and holds a library card has access completely to the same services. It doesn't matter if they're the mayor or a homeless person. Everyone in the library is supposed to be treated the same. It is the one place in America where equality doesn't just get lip service. The American Library Association has produced a wonderful statement called the Freedom to Read Statement wherein it is believed that your freedom to read comes directly from the first amendment of the constitution of the United States. You're about to lose that and that's pretty darn important.

You can think of the library as a repository of everyone who has ever thought and everyone who has ever written! That's a lot to lose access to.

Now we know that by in large, we are not really in tight budget times at all but rather we know that a lot states have ran up artificial deficits just like in Wisconsin wherein they give tax breaks to wealthy individuals and corporations and then try to balance the budget on the backs of working class Americans and their unions. So it is that library systems all over America are running out of money and this is in danger of tearing the guts out of the last truly socialized institution in America, where everyone is supposed to be equal and it is in danger of creating a division in the population of the information haves and have-nots.

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Literacy among adults and children in the information age is the lynch pin to education, retraining and full employment. No institution in America does more to support literacy than your friendly neighborhood library. I'm not just talking about story hour and reading programs for children but serious efforts in supporting young adults and working adults literacy and continued education efforts. Let's understand that there is a strong correlation between literacy rates and crime. That is say that most people in America and there are over 2 million of them who are in jails and prisons traditionally suffer from low literacy rates. Why is it that America can find plenty of money for prisons but has problems in finding money for libraries? All of this is to say nothing of the staggering lost of human potential of the American prison population. In fact we have about as many people in prison as we do have in the military. Oh yes and did you know that most American military manuals are written at the 9th grade reading level? Did you also know that there are millions of Americans today who cannot read this diary because they are functionally illiterate? Now we start to understand what it is that America is losing, when it is losing the last truly socialized institution in America.

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This diary encourages you to support your local library by writing a letter to the editor today and telling them why it is that you support libraries, that you support literacy and that you support intellectual freedom for both authors and readers. Also please consider joining your friends of the libraries group. We need everyone's help to defend the last fully socialized institution in America which is your local library.

Thank you for your support of American libraries.

(Finally it should be noted that the famous philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who in the minds of many was a noted socialist set up libraries all over America.) READ MORE !

IMLS, LSTA Funding in Jeopardy

All IMLS, LSTA Funding in JeopardyAmerican Libraries: 2.15.11 by Beverly Goldberg

A bill that is coming up for a vote this week in the House of Representatives calls for the elimination of all Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funding, including Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funding, for the remainder of FY2011.

Reaction to the introduction of Amendment 35 to the Continuing Resolution was swift. “To eliminate this vital federal agency would be a disservice to those families who have come to depend on their libraries,” declared Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association’s Washington Office. “LSTA funding provides needed support to establish statewide and regional services to help local libraries save money and meet the changing demands and needs of their communities.”

The ALA Washington Office has posted a link to its Capwiz email interface to facilitate library advocates contacting their congressional representatives to urge them to oppose Amendment 35 to the Continuing Resolution because:

Libraries are essential to every community, and federal funding is critical for ensuring that library resources and services remain available to their constituents. LSTA supports all kinds of libraries including school, academic, and public libraries. Public libraries are the primary source of no-fee access to the internet and are active in assisting the public with online job searches, e-government services, and lifelong learning.

Sheketoff emphasized that loss of the funding would prevent libraries from continuing to “play an essential role in today’s communities, providing access to technology and the information people need to search for work and find jobs, apply for e-government services, and get homework help,” concluding that “the American public is poorly served if federal funding and library support are eliminated.”

Amendment 35 was submitted for House consideration by Rep. Scott Garrett (R–N.J.).

Camden Loses Soul for Good: Closes Main Library

Camden loses its soul for good -- closes main library
Trentonian: February 10, 2011

CAMDEN (AP) — The latest blow to this downtrodden city came Thursday as the downtown branch of the public library was closing for good.

The main branch of the Camden Free Public Library, in a high-ceilinged former bank building, was a victim of the same budget crisis that resulted in layoffs last month of nearly 400 city government employees, including nearly half the police department and one-third of the firefighters.

Now, many residents of this city that ranks among the nation’s poorest and most crime-ridden will need to search elsewhere for access to computers or books. The men who play a trash-talking brand of chess in front of the big windows say they’ll take their boards to the one remaining branch, a bus ride away.

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The library made news around the world in August when its directors announced plans to close all three branches. No U.S. city this large, with about 80,000 residents, had lost all its libraries before.

The problem was money. The cash-strapped city government, which found its costs mounting, its tax revenues shrinking and its aid from the state reduced, was cutting its contribution to the library system from more than $900,000 last year to less than $300,000.

News of the total shutdown brought a partial rescue. One tiny branch in the remote Fairview neighborhood was closed in October. But the city bumped its support to $389,000, enough to keep the remaining two branches open until February. The Camden County library system agreed to take over what remained.

But the main branch would have to shut down. READ MORE !

Free Library of Philadelphia: Economic Impact

Fels study shows Free Library’s economic impact
Penn Current: February 3, 2011 by Tanya Barrientos

It’s not easy to put a price on the acquisition of knowledge, professional development and community pride.

But that is precisely what officials at the Free Library of Philadelphia asked Penn’s Fels Institute of Government to do by creating an economic impact report quantifying the value of the city’s vast library system in dollars and cents.

“We wanted to be able to make a statement about the important role we play in the economic development of the city,” says Siobhan Reardon, president and director of the Free Library. “People know a library is nice to have. But we wanted to show how important the resources are that we have, to show that the library is a place where people can go and get help moving forward, to find help getting back to work, to think about their lives, and all for free.”

The study—prepared by Fels Senior Consultant Deborah Diamond, Penn Institute for Urban Research (IUR) Fellow Kevin C. Gillen and Fels graduate student Marissa Litman—is one of the first to quantify the economic impact of a library system the size of Philadelphia’s, with 54 branches and an operating budget of about $87 million.

The findings, Reardon says, were illuminating. According to the report, in addition to contributing to the literacy and cultural welfare of city residents, the library system last year generated more than $30 million of economic value in business development and it also increased property value.

According to the report, an estimated 8,600 businesses benefitted from the library system’s resources, providing entrepreneurs with information that helped them start or grow their enterprises. The Free Library also helped nearly 1,000 Philadelphians find jobs directly through institutional resources. Those jobs, the report notes, will translate into $30 million in earned income in one year and will generate $1.2 million in tax revenue for the city.

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Diamond says the study examined four categories of economic impact: Literacy, Workforce Development, Business Development and Neighborhood Impact. Literacy, she explains, is one of the most fundamental and vital skills provided by public libraries. Being able to read is critical in the modern, knowledge-based economy. In 2010, the report shows, the Free Library loaned to visitors $18.4 million worth of literacy-related material, provided $2.6 million in literacy-related programming and $818,000 in literacy-centered activities.

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“As we work toward our own economic recovery,” Reardon says, it’s important to know “our impact is real.” READ MORE !