Simcoe County in Ontario launched a new program this year called Library Link, which “establishes community libraries as welcoming hubs in Simcoe County to help immigrants feel at home, access materials in different languages, and find local community information and referral support.”[1] As Simcoe.com pointed out, the library can also be a place for people to connect to each other and form new relationships, which provides added value to the services helping with learning languages and adjusting to a new life. [2]

Many libraries are working to help immigrants in their areas. San Francisco Public Library has a page of Citizenship Resources and is offering a free citizenship workshop in late February. Chicago Public Library has a page called Becoming a Citizen filled with resources, as well as specific locations that are Citizenship Corners. New York Public Library has English language classes, financial programs, and other resources for immigrants.

Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD), Colorado Springs, also has an Adult Literacy department that works with adult learners, including immigrants. I spoke with the manager, Teona Shainidze-Krebs, about the different services that are offered, which include English classes, tutoring, conversation groups, and a more recent addition of Path to Citizenship groups, which help to prepare patrons for the US naturalization test and are possible through a partnership with our local Catholic Charities Immigration Services.[3]

PPLD also provides English classes at a school in an area with a high immigrant population, a partnership with the school district that has afforded access to this service for even more people. Shainidze-Krebs said, “I think the most important thing is that we can help parents, and then the kids see what their parents are doing and it helps them. At the school where we offer ESL classes, the assistant principal told me that she could see a direct correlation between students whose parents were in the ESL classes and the students’ test scores.”[4]

One of my especially meaningful library memories was the day in 2015 when the library where I work hosted a naturalization ceremony with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The people in attendance were all dressed up, and you could see the excitement and anticipation on their faces. Hearing stories about a student who came to learn English and then was able to start her own business, and others who have moved from the ESL classes to now working on getting their GEDs and being able to get better jobs warms my heart.[5] A library can make such an impact on its community, and providing services for immigrants is just one more way to provide support.

References:

[1] “County of Simcoe launches Library Link pilot project,” County of Simcoe press release, January 5, 2016.

[2] Jenni Dunning. “Libraries key to Simcoe County immigrants’ success,” Simcoe.com, January 23, 2016.

[3] Teona Shainidze-Krebs, interview by Becca Cruz. February 18, 2016.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

The post Immigration Services in Libraries first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Working with government policymakers: Stiftung Lesen’s Lesestart, a program in Germany, supports libraries in educating parents about the importance of reading aloud to their children. A mix of non-profit and government partners provide book packs to families with young children, including pediatricians, libraries, and schools. In receiving the book packs from diverse groups, Lesestart teaches parents that reading affects many facets of their children’s life and development.

Creating a community of literacy: The Family Reading Partnership, located in Ithaca, NY, targets parents and children at different stages of development to support early literacy in children ages 0-5. Expectant mothers receive a children’s picture book as well as an adult book on the importance of literacy at prenatal visits, and children receive a higher level book when they register for kindergarten, marking the next stage of education.

Selecting appropriate language of instruction: Worldreader, located in Barcelona, Spain, serves fifty countries in Africa and Asia in providing access to over 27,000 e-books in forty-three languages. Books are distributed through e-readers and mobile phones in low- and middle-income countries served where phones are often more common than bathrooms or running water. Large international publishers donate licenses and small local publishers give large discounts to some of their best works.

Literacy in service of social goals: Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop serves youth who have been charged as adults in Washington, DC jails and federal prisons. The three-stage program motivates inmates to read with both reading and writing projects.

Providing access to readers with disabilities: Men with a Message Braille Program relies on eleven residents of the James T. Vaughn Correctional Facility in Delaware who create materials for visually-impaired residents of Delaware, and the American Printing House allows much of their work to reach the entire nation. Visually-impaired readers request translation of materials that range from worksheets and textbooks from K-12 classrooms, poetry and plays, and religious texts used for worship.

Click here to read more about these and other extraordinary literacy programs. See if any of the innovative techniques spark ideas you can use in your own organization.

Sources

http://www.read.gov/documents/BestPractices2015.pdf

http://www.read.gov/literacyawards/index.html

The post Library of Congress Literacy Awards 2015: Best Practices first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Here are some important details that you need to consider before starting an adult literacy program at your library:

• A Tutoring Room – It’s important to have a private room in which tutors and learners can talk. Both the tutor and the learners will appreciate the chance to work together in privacy.
• A Resource Partner – It’s a great benefit to have a resource partner that you can go to if you need help. Since the beginning of our program in 2013, the Washtenaw Literacy Program has been our resource partner; they have answered our questions, given advice, and provided forms and materials that we could use in our own Program. If you are unable to get together with a program like Washtenaw Literacy, then I would recommend utilizing a website created by Kristy Cooper called Supporting Adult Literacy in Public Libraries. Cooper created the Adult Literacy Program at the Westland Michigan Public Library. She took everything that she learned about creating a literacy program and created a website so that other libraries can utilize her experience when they create their own program.
• Sources of Funding – There are costs involved with creating an adult literacy program. For example, Washtenaw Literacy would charge $1000 each time a group of tutors was trained. The Friends of the Library covered our startup costs. I suggest checking with local literacy organizations to see if they will create a partnership. There are also grants available to cover program startup and operating costs; Dollar General is an example of an organization that offers those types of grants.
• Program Promotion – It’s vital to talk with both local and national charitable organizations to let them know your program exists. Once they know your program exists, they can direct interested learners to you.

The BADL Library Staff attended Cooper’s presentation at the 2012 Michigan Library Association conference. The presentation topic was how she created the Literacy Program at the Westland Michigan Library. Her presentation was the final bit of motivation our staff needed to create a literacy program at our library.  In the end, our Literacy Program has had a positive impact on everyone who has taken part in it. One of our learners finished her college degree, another has gone back to college, and another learner now reads books for pleasure. Many of our learners have become frequent library customers. Staff too, have found the work of providing literacy training and education essential to the community and also very satisfying on a personal level.

The post Starting an Adult Literacy Program first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Define “Young Adult Graphic Novel.” – We started by looking at the young adult graphic novel collection, and we decided we were going to pull some of the series that were showing up on “Best Adult Graphic Novels” lists. That should bring a built-in audience to our new adult graphic novel area. Out of the young adult collection came Sandman, Spawn, and Watchman. The young adult collection thus became the bastion of the superheroes of DC and Marvel with a strong Star Wars presence. It’s not that adults didn’t read these books voraciously, but it brought the content of the graphic novels more in line with the content of the young adult novels we had.

Where are the compilations of newspaper comics going? – Libraries put these books in all different places, including non-fiction and young adult sections. Not that it doesn’t happen, but when did you see a high schooler reading Doonesbury? And many people like Dilbert, but searching in the 700s is a daunting task. We rescued the newspaper comics compilation books from 741.5 and put them in the adult graphic novel collection. As soon as we did, they started circulating quite a bit more than they had before.

Where do the graphic novels go that students may be assigned for class? – Maus and Persepolis are good examples of books that teachers frequently incorporate into their curriculum. These books had been living in the young adult section, but unfortunately no one was reading them. However, we had an eighth grade English teacher ask us about other books similar to these, including some of Gene Luen Yang’s books and A Game for Swallows. Would we be getting additional similar titles, he wondered, because he’d like to assign his class to read some of these types of books? To give these titles more cache and also to entice adults who would also be interested in these books but never find them in youth materials, these books were moved. All “literary graphic novels” now live in the adult graphic novel collection.

How is this section not a repository for unloved books? – Given the more conservative view our community has about books for youth, there were a number of graphic novels we didn’t have in the library’s collection. We now have the graphic novel versions of titles by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Janet Evanovich sharing shelf space with the Walking Dead. We have Sin City and Hellraiser. Without this section of adult graphic novels, we couldn’t adequately accommodate many popular titles that appeal to a quiet minority of our community who never requested we purchase these books but seems to be checking them out regularly.

How do you evaluate success? – Obviously, circulation is one way, and the graphic novels have only been their own section for six months or so. It seems like people are reading the books, even if it’s only the staff who are grudgingly admitting that “there might be something to these graphic novels.” Every time we talk to an adult about Maus, Persepolis, or American Born Chinese and he or she decides to check out the book, we have success. However, overhearing that a 24 year-old male patron said to his friends via social media, “You have to come to the Madison Public Library. They have really great comics [referring to our adult graphic novel section].” That is the best sign of success ever.

You know your patrons best. What do they want in their adult graphic novels? You may decide what makes up our adult graphic novels section does not work for you. Use this as a guide, and no matter what you decide, we hope your section is popular with the patrons of your community.

Cover Photo Credit: carmichaellibrary (CC BY 2.0)

Melanie A. Lyttle is the Head of Public Services Madison Public Library. You can watch her YouTube channel, Crabby Librarian, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rv5GLWsUow. Shawn D. Walsh is the Emerging Services and Technologies Librarian at Madison Public Library.

The post What is an Adult Graphic Novel? first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Former executive-director of LIT and a former school librarian in a juvenile detention center, Jessica Fenster-Sparber, observes that “jails, detention centers, and prisons provide a unique opportunity to address young people’s literacy gaps…excellent school libraries are in dire need at these sites.”[2]

The Challenges

There is a lot more to consider than just encouraging reluctant readers to read. Challenges include:

1. Collection development.
2. Institutional compliance and cooperation.
3. Inclusion of incarcerated teens as part of the public library’s young adult/outreach services.
4. Collaboration with school, correctional facilities and public libraries.

Books for Incarcerated Youth

Public libraries need to recognize literacy’s role in empowering incarcerated teens. Dr. Ernest Morrell, Director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University, explains it best: “Literacy is not just about decoding text. It’s about becoming a superior human being that can act powerfully upon the world.”[3]

Public librarians can access many specialized lists such as The New York Public Library’s Incarcerated Teens: A Booklist and School Library Journal’s From the Underground column.

The good news, however, is that young adult librarians already have the tools to work with this population. Dr. Alfred Tatum, current Director of the University of Illinois Chicago Reading Clinic, calls for the use of enabling text, ”texts that [minority students], (60% of incarcerated teens), find meaningful and that will help them…move beyond some of the tur­moil-related experiences they encounter outside school.” Dr. Tatum stresses that enabling text can “serve as a road map for being, doing, thinking, and acting.” [4]

Incarcerated teens do not want a “one size fits all” collection. Yes, they want urban fiction, but fantasy and other young adult genres appeal to them also. It is up to the librarian to get to know each individual audience.

School Libraries/Public Libraries Partnerships

Collaborative efforts between school districts and public library systems increase programming efforts, too.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Boys Totem Town, a juvenile detention center, was able to host Young Adult author, Francisco X. Stork, through a partnership with the Ramsey County Library, which helped fund the project. Stork spoke to students about his novel Behind the Eyes (Dutton, 2006), which deals with reform school. The Ramsey County Library’s outreach regularly visits the facility with both books and programs.[5]

Sabrina Carnesi is school librarian at a STEM magnet school in Newport News, Virginia. She promotes literacy services to many formerly detained youth. Her school library’s “Young Gents and Young Ladies” book discussion group addresses tough topics that these kids confront outside of their academic day. [6]

Young adult librarians and school librarians need to be attuned to teens inside facilities and those recently released. They share the same literacy concerns.

Innovation Gained Through Cooperation

Correctional facilities and public libraries are teaming up for pilot programs as new technologies emerge in library services. The correctional facility is a very important stakeholder in planning and is vital to program success.

Presently, Passages Academy has become the first school library to get iPads into the hands of its incarcerated students with, of course, the cooperation of the New York City Department of Corrections.[7]

Through the Urbana Free Library, the University of Illinois School of LIS and IMLS Mix IT Up, Joe Coyle offers a Teen Open Lab, a weekly digital music production program at the Champaign County JDC . The library and JDC hope that these pre-adjudicated teens will continue their library association through this program.

Promoting a Life-long Activity

In many states, teens as young as sixteen, are incarcerated in adult jails. Reading and literacy skills can be the one positive thing they leave jail with.

Barbara Roos, coordinator of teen services for the East Baton Rouge Parish Library in Louisiana and outreach coordinator to the local juvenile detention, gives them another—a Library Exit Packet. It includes an information packet about her library and its services, bookmarks for Text-a-Librarian and online databases, a coupon worth $5 at the library book store, a Fresh Start coupon to erase any fines they had, a previously approved library card, and a free book.[8]

Ms. Roos’ philosophy: We want to keep them reading.

Literacy and Education—The Better Alternatives

Whatever the reasons why they became incarcerated, promoting literacy and education are far better solutions than incarceration. One million dollars invested in incarceration reduces 300 crimes; one million dollars invested in education reduces 600 crimes.[9]  Literacy works.

[1] Chung, S. (2014). Literacy for Incarcerated Teens. School Library Journal, Fall (September). Retrieved October 13, 2014, from http://www.slj.com/2014/09/literacy/literacy-for-incarcerated-teens/#_

[2] Ibid

[3] Morrell, E. (Keynote Speaker) (2014, June 3). Cultivating Youth Voices: Literacy and Agency for African American Males. Building a Bridge to Literacy. Lecture conducted from School of Information and Library Science at UNC, Chapel Hill.

[4] Tatum, A. (Keynote Speaker) (2014, June 3). Bridge to Literacy. Building a Bridge to Literacy. Lecture conducted from School of Information and Library Science at UNC, Chapel Hill.

[5] Marta, M. (2013). Partners In Success. School Library Journal, 11(1) (January 2013), 23-28.

[6] (E-mail interview, 10/09/14).

[7] Fenster-Sparber, J. A.Kennedy, C.Leon, & Schwartz. (2012). E-reading Across the Digital Divide. Young Adult Library Services, 10(4) (2013, Summer), 38-41.

[8] Roos, B. (2012, Spring). Beyond the Bars Serving Teens In Lockdown. Young Adult Library Services, 10(2), 12-14.

[9] Knewton, Breaking the Prison Cycle through Education. Infographic. Houghton Mifflin Company, Inc. 2013. http://www.knewton.com/prison-education/.

The post When the Prison Doors Slam Shut On a Teen: Hope in Literacy first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

• Are they prepared in terms of collections, services, spaces, programs, staffing and communications?
• Do they have the visibility, identity, and partners necessary to connect with Boomers?
• Are they ready and able to allocate the resources necessary to respond to the age wave?

The traditional paradigm, equating senior services with sedentary and retired adults or homebound individuals, has been replaced by a healthier and more active 55+ population, one that is not restricted to a “one size fits all” description. Some Boomers are still in the workforce, while others are looking to engage in the same activities as their younger counterparts.

Diantha Dow Schull, principal of D.D. Schull Associates and author of 50+ Library Services: Innovation in Action (ALA Editions, 2013) emphasizes that “chronological age is less important than individual preferences and circumstances.”

In some communities, libraries are creating new relationships with older adults by re-branding themselves as lifelong learning centers as well as establishing themselves as vibrant community centers where older adults can engage in and interact with one another.

Many libraries have developed innovative and creative programs and approaches to working with these Boomers including:

• Next Chapter, @ New York Public Library: special programming, new classes, multiple partnerships, grant-funded projects, a blog, and a Facebook page.

• Senior Moments blog (http://www.bklynlibrary.org/blog/senior-moments ), Brooklyn Public Library’s blog that showcases unique programs for Boomers, such as Xbox gaming classes, poetry readings and computer training at the library.Book to Action (PDF), Multnomah County (Oreg.): book-discussion model where participants read a text concerning a particular social issue, such as local farming or domestic abuse, and then visit a local nonprofit working on that issue to help with a service project or community event.

• The Creative Aging Public Libraries Project, a program developed by Lifetime Arts in a partnership with the Westchester (N.Y.) Library System: an arts education program for older adults.

• Connect Care, Queens Public Library: educational health programs and free health screenings at eight Queens library branches in partnership with Albert Einstein Medical Center.

Still, many libraries lag behind; some continue to offer limited “senior” services. Schull says that large-print books, weekly movie programs, and outreach to senior centers or nursing homes are important and certainly merit attention in order to meet the needs of the frail and isolated elderly.

However, Schull emphasizes that libraries need to acknowledge the demographic changes taking place across the country and the potential for libraries to become community centers for the many independent, active, engaged older adults who are redefining aging in America.

The ALA Office of Literacy and Outreach (OLOS) Toolkit, Keys to Engaging Older Adults @ your library: Libraries can empower older adults with engaging programs and services, offers suggestions for programming, key terms, links to resources and partner agencies as well as funding resources and tools for writing a successful grant. It is an invaluable resource for library systems that want to improve or develop a program that keeps pace with the changing face of the Baby Boomer population.

The Baby Boom population has changed the world many times in the last 70 or so years: a 1950s population boom, the advent of Rock and Roll, as well as a Civil Rights and War protest that changed the face of history.

Now, they are demanding changes in library services.

James Welbourne, City Librarian Director at the New Haven, Connecticut Free Public Library, describes the challenges that libraries have in meeting these demands: “There is a new language addressing this population and it is not “senior.” It is about being mature adult, the third age, the next challenge, productive aging, and much more…We have a lot of ground to cover.”

Whatever word we eventually choose, there is no debate—library services for individuals 55+ need to be re-defined in new and creative ways.

*Blogger, Marybeth Zeman, writes from firsthand experience—a “Baby Boomer”, born in the 1950s, she returned to get her MLIS at St. John’s University in 2009 and is presently pursuing a second career in library science. She intends on providing library services as well as receiving them.

Works Cited

[1] Baby Boomer Generation Fast Facts. (2013, November 6). CNN. US. Retrieved August 18, 2014, from http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/us/baby-boomer-generation-fast-facts/

[2] Schull, D. (2013). 50+ Library Services: Innovation in Action. Chicago: ALA Editions.

[3] Outreach and Diversity. (n.d.). American Library Report 2014. Retrieved August 18, 2014, from http://www.ala.org/news/state-americas-libraries-report-2014/diversity

[4] Ibid

The post Baby Boomers Aren’t Called “Seniors” Anymore – Next Level Programming for Older Adults first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

According to the 2010 US Census, there are 50.5 million people of Hispanic origin in the United States compared to 35.3 million in 2000. Hispanics are the largest growing population in the United States with a 43 percent growth since 1990. According to Mexico’s 2000 Census, 53 percent of their population did not complete intermediate-level education. In 2010, the Pew Hispanic Center stated that 52 percent of Hispanics in the United States are high school dropouts compared to 25 percent of the native born. Among Hispanic dropouts, some 21 percent of the native born have a GED, compared with just 5 percent of the foreign born. Unemployment rates are higher and salaries are lower for those who do not have a high school diploma. Studies have shown that the development of a second language is dependent on the knowledge of the first language.

The Plaza Comunitarias Program was created in 2001 under the administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox and accepted in the United States through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Mexican and United States governments dated November 10, 2004. The Plazas Comunitarias serve as transitional programs into English and adult basic education classes as it establishes an academic foundation for Hispanic immigrants from which to work. There are four hundred Plaza Comunitarias programs in the United States.

In 2005, the Texas Library Association awarded the Richardson (Tex.) Public Library (RPL) a grant to send one of its staff members to Mexico to receive training in the Plazas Comunitarias Program. Plaza Comunitaria is a free curriculum in Spanish created by the Mexican National Institute of Adult Education (INEA) to help Hispanics learn to read and write in their native language and finish elementary- and intermediate-level education certified by the Mexican Department of Education.

The Mexican Consulate offices in Dallas became RPL’s liaison with the INEA. A work program agreement was signed in 2006 between INEA, the Mexican Consulate, and RPL. This agreement would give us access to INEA’s registration and testing online system known by its acronym SASACE. We also have access to all textbooks (print versions, online editions, and PDF files).

In 2006, RPL was granted $5,000 from the Texas Book Festival to purchase three computers and one printer for the Plaza Comu-nitaria. The library provided us with four additional computers in a former supervisor’s office that are connected to the City of Richardson’s computer network. Additional grants provided funding for ESL, citizenship, and GED materials. The library provides an annual budget of $5,000 that covers printing, supplies, instructional materials, and a dinner for the graduation ceremony.

In July 2006, the Plaza Comunitaria @ Richardson Public Library Program was inaugurated. Announcements were sent to Hispanic newspapers and radio stations, supermarkets, churches, schools, and public libraries all over the Dallas metropolitan area. We had planned to reach twenty-five adult learners but we inaugurated with sixty-three instead. We recruited and trained twelve Latino volunteer tutors who would work two hours per week in study groups. By the end of 2006, we had registered 110 adult learners. We now work with an average of two hundred students every year. All students must take diagnostic testing provided by SASACE to determine their course of study. Free copies of the books assigned to the students are printed and provided at the library’s expense. The library offers us three classroom spaces and a computer lab.

Like all adult literacy programs, some challenges were presented. As of 2011, we were working with an average of two hundred students per year with a 70 percent retention rate. Students come and go due to family and work problems. Lack of space and volunteer tutors to work with individual students also present a challenge. The curriculum can be overwhelming to many students. Basic literacy students––those learning to read and write as adults––take a considerable amount of time to learn. Because of their indigenous roots, many are learning a structured language for the first time. About half of the basic literacy students drop the program due to frustrations and low self-esteem. Our job is not only to teach, but to motivate. We motivate our students by organizing classes at their convenience, providing motivational speakers, and celebrating their triumphs.

Each book in the curriculum requires one to three months to complete and test except for basic literacy, which takes an average of a year to complete the first book. Both elementary- and –intermediate-level students are required to complete a total of twelve books to complete an educational level. All books in the curriculum are based on life and work skills and are written exclusively for adults.

We work with an average of fifteen volunteer tutors per year. Volunteer tutors are hard to retain because of the profound commitment tutoring requires. Recruitment and training of volunteer tutors is continuous. We visit professional and cultural associations to recruit tutors. Most of the tutors at this time are former students of the program. Tutors must be competent in any of the academic areas such as mathematics, Spanish, history, and science. To be effective, tutors must remain with their students for the duration of the book they study. They meet for three hours weekly for an average of twenty weeks except for the basic literacy students. The average stay of a volunteer tutor is one year but we have two volunteers that have been with us for six years and ten that have been with us for more than two years.

Volunteer tutor training is essential. Tutor training is directly connected to retention. INEA and local literacy organizations provide us with training. Individual training is also provided by the coordinator to all volunteer tutors. Lesson planning, educational resources, and teaching techniques are discussed during the training sessions. Volunteer tutors are presented with all types of challenges with adult learners because most of these adults do not possess study skills or read for pleasure. Some students are completely illiterate or are undereducated. Volunteer tutors must buy into the program to stay with it, which is why most of the tutors are former students who have received the services provided. The tutors feel the urge to pay it forward or to give to the community in a significant way. Tutors do change lives and these changes can be seen in their students.

One of our volunteer tutors, Josefina, finished her elementary, middle school and GED preparation course in Spanish with the Plaza Comunitaria Program and is now teaching basic literacy to illiterate Hispanics. Josefina was our Volunteer of the Year in 2012. She not only has changed her life but is determined to change the lives of others. Josefina does not drive so she walks from her home to the library. She has the patience and compassion of a saint and talks to everyone about how education has changed her view of the world and has given her hope for her future and her children.

Partnerships are essential to the success of the program. In September 2009, the Plaza Comunitaria program partnered with the Richardson Independent School District After-School Program, which provides us with two paid teachers who work with a group of twenty intermediate-level students once a week for three hours at a school facility. Ninety-two percent of these adult learners continued the program and the rest were replaced with new students. They took their subject tests and passed them. Another partner is the Richardson Adult Literacy Center, a non-profit organization that has worked with the library for more than fifteen years providing ESL instruction. ESL is taught in six levels with average groups of fifteen students at a school facility. The space required for classroom purposes would be impossible to provide without the help of the school districts.

The Plaza Comunitaria @ Richardson Public Library offers other types of courses besides the essential basic literacy, pre-GED, and GED preparation courses for the Hispanic population. The program also offers workshops and seminars during the year that cover computer, financial, health, and civic literacy. Seminars have been offered on self-esteem, domestic violence, positive thinking, and college readiness. We have taken adult learners to field trips, author lectures, and museums. One of the lectures we attended was by author Isabel Allende. It was important for the students to listen to a Hispanic writer speak in English. Even though Allende has lived in the United States for many years, she still has a Hispanic accent. The students were very pleased to hear her and understand that they do not have to speak English like their children to be understood. Many Hispanics are leery of speaking with an accent and many are reticent to speak at all, even when they know the language. Students also visited the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas to listen to the audio tour in English. We met later to discuss the highlights of the tour. Many students had never heard an author or visited a museum before.

Our citizenship and Teaching of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) classes are open to all nationalities. The volunteer instructor for the citizenship class is trained by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The volunteer instructor for the TOEFL class is a certified ESL instructor. During the summer we offer a Spanish as a Second Language “Conversaciones @ the Library” course to non-Spanish speakers.

At city hall, during the month of January, the library celebrates a formal graduation ceremony for all students who have completed elementary, intermediate, and GED educational levels during the previous year. We provide diplomas, a special guest speaker, dinner, and entertainment. The library also provides the graduation gowns. The pride and joy of our 231 graduates since 2007 is priceless. Families join the graduates in this ceremony to celebrate the hard work and sacrifices of their family members.

The coordinator is a library staff member who is also a supervisor of technical services at the library, so the job requires excellent time management skills. It is the responsibility of the coordinator to interview, register, and test all adult learners as well as recruit and train all volunteer tutors. The coordinator also models teaching techniques during the first couple of classes. The coordinator attends literacy conferences with a selected number of volunteer tutors and then meets with all tutors to discuss the highlights of the training. During the meetings with the volunteer tutors, supplementary materials and the use of websites are discussed. We established four months out of the year (April, May, October, November) for registration and placement testing of new students. Intermediate-level students are tested twice a semester, while elementary-level students are tested once per semester. Each semester is twenty weeks long, leaving two months (June and December) for volunteer tutors and the coordinator to take vacation from the program.

In 2011–12, the library went through the ProLiteracy America accreditation process. The Plaza Comunitaria @ Richardson Public Library is officially a nationally accredited volunteer-based adult literacy program. Accreditation indicates that the library follows the national standards for adult literacy. ProLiteracy America provides discounts for literacy materials, training, advocacy, and a national literacy directory for public use.

Coordinating the Plaza Comunitaria program is very hard work. It is a challenge but very rewarding. There is a tremendous need for adult literacy programs in general and the need in the Hispanic community continues to grow. With library staff and budgets shrinking, many libraries would think that this type of commitment is not possible. However, the success of the adult literacy programs at RPL indicate that they can be cost-effective and efficiently run if the library is committed to serving its community where it really needs help.

The responsibilities of public libraries have changed in the last few decades. Library users today require that lifelong education be taken seriously and that public libraries offer more than book clubs, storytimes, and computer classes. Today’s public libraries are community centers that provide access to knowledge, education, and entertainment. Public libraries are the lifeline to lifelong readers and we need to start by creating these readers.

Adult literacy changes the lives of the undereducated; makes them better citizens and workers; and allows them to be role models to their children and their community.

Public libraries are the perfect place to provide adult literacy classes because libraries have the space and resources necessary, are accessible, centrally located, have service-oriented operating hours, and have friendly and approachable staff. More importantly literacy is part of the library’s mission.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jack Cassidy et al., “A Learner-Centered Family Literacy Project for Latino Parents And Caregivers,” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 47, no. 6 (March 2004): 478–88.

James Cummins, Schooling and Language Minority Students: A Theoretical Framework (Los Angeles: California State University, 1981).

Nadine Dutcher, Expanding Educational Opportunity in Linguistically Diverse Societies (Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 2002).

Richard Fry, “Hispanics, High School Dropouts and the GED,” PewResearch Hispanic Center, accessed Feb. 1, 2013.

Eugene E. Garcia, Effective Schooling for Language Minority Students (Washington, D.C.: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education, 1987).

Ana G. Huerta-Macias, “Meeting the Challenge of Adult Education: A Bilingual Approach to Literacy and Career Development,” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Education 47, no. 3 (Nov. 2003): 218–28.

Stephen D. Krashen, Bilingual Education and Second Language Acquisition Theory (Los Angeles: University of California, 1984).

Lisa Krolak, The Role of Libraries in the Creation of Literate Environments (Hamburg, Germany: UNESCO Institute for Education, 2005).

Sylvia Cobos Lieshoff, “Working with Latino Families: Challenges Faced by Educators and Civic Readers,” Adult Basic Education and Literacy Journal, 1, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 133–44.

México, Instituto Nacional para la Educación de Adultos, Relación entre el Aprendizaje de la Lectura, Escritura y Cálculo Básico en Español, y el Dominio del Inglés como Segundo Idioma (Investigación en Adultos Mexicanos Residentes en EUA, 2002).

México. Instituto Nacional para la Educación de Adultos, Normas y Procedimientos de Inscripción, Acreditación y Certificación de Educación para Jóvenes y Adultos de Comunidades Mexicanas en el Exterior, 2006.

Mexico, Censo de Población, 2010.

US Census Bureau, The Hispanic Population: 2010 (C2010BR-04, 2011).

The post Plaza Comunitaria Literacy Programming @ the Library first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

This article explores the impact library literacy programs have in the development of immigrant community engagement. Literacy programs are free, learner-centered library services that are essential to the social, cultural, and economic development of rapidly expanding ethnic communities. Through their literacy services, libraries play an important role in reaching and expanding membership of new Americans.

Library-based literacy programs are an integral part of the mission of library services. These services contribute to the building of immigrant community engagement in their cities and neighborhoods where they live. Public libraries are literacy hubs radiating into diverse communities through their literacy programs, enriching a global village and engaging new citizens in the social, economic, and political activities of their communities.

As a government institution with a strong commitment to free access of information, libraries have been able to continue to provide library services, including literacy services to adult learners and their families. Due to extensive budget cuts, these educational gains are being threatened. As in the 1980s, “save our library” has become a recurring call in many communities. How important are libraries in building a community’s knowledge through its collection and through literacy programs? In this article, the importance of library and community partnerships will be explored with descriptions of successful urban literacy program models in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The importance of library literacy programs will be emphasized. These programs are a key component of the twenty-first century library mission and an element of its survival. The important role of the state library as a partner in stimulating growth and innovation among the regional public library sector is another major component.

Libraries, Literacy, and the New Immigrant

In 1984, the California State Library’s California Literacy Campaign (CLC) under State Librarian Gary Strong provided the initial library literacy grant to twenty seven public libraries. Two years later, five literacy programs formed the Bay Area Literacy Network (BALit). In 1985, the Southern California Library Literacy Network (SCLLN) was organized. Today, there are more than 100 library literacy programs in California serving over 100,000 participants, both adults and children.² In FY2011–12, this funding was eliminated by California Governor Brown. In 2012, the California legislature reinstated $4.7 million in library funding with the majority of funds provided for library literacy programs. At the urging of the California Library Association (CLA) and the passing of Governor Brown’s Tax Initiative (Proposition 30), the governor released his 2013-14 budget with 4.7 million for continued library funding. According to Mike Dillon, CLA lobbyist, “the budget spares public libraries from any further reduction.”³

In California, nearly a quarter of California’s adult population (23 percent) lacks prose literacy skills. In the counties of Alameda and Santa Clara the low literacy skills reach 19 and 16 percent respectively.⁴ Bay Area cities are ethnically diverse with the minority becoming the majority. In the city of Fremont in Southern Alameda County, Asians are the majority at 50.3 percent of the city’s population of more than 214,000 residents.⁵ A decade ago, Asians made up 37 percent while the white population has decreased from 47.7 to 32.8 percent in the last ten years.⁶

The emerging trend is evident. New immigrants will become a majority in many cities in California, and the library has a role in welcoming new Americans and integrating them into the community.⁷

In 2008, Neal Peirce of the Washington Post wrote that libraries “can be the fulcrum of renewal in cities and neighborhoods.”⁸ Libraries continue their historic responsibility to provide free early literacy to young people, conversation classes to immigrants, computer skills to job seekers, access to the Internet and library databases, workforce development, and networking for the unemployed and for entrepreneurs. According to Jonathan Bowles, director for the Center for Urban Future, “many of the needs of the immigrant entrepreneurs also overlap the traditional forms of public library service, namely language and literacy skills, which may not be the stuff of headlines, but are absolutely essential roles in smoothing the path for immigrant entrepreneurs.”⁹

Libraries create connections to local institutions and build English language skills for immigrants and native speakers. An Urban Library Council report situates libraries as important community centers for connecting adult learners and their families through their collections and classes, including adult English instruction, early and family literacy and school readiness programs.¹⁰ Libraries contribute to the future of communities by supporting “successful immigrant transitions and help communities deal effectively with the effects of rapid worldwide change.”¹¹ Libraries and their literacy programs not only can respond to rapid worldwide change, but can also be the agents for the information that stimulates that change. Libraries provide users with free access to information that supports a social constructivist paradigm that builds as much as it promotes critical reflection in learners.

Library literacy programs are constructing ways to reach learners and build civic engagement in a global community. As recipients of a socially constructed set of codes or language, we are constantly embarking on critical reflection of our learning, not just what is learned, but how and for what purpose we learn.¹² The vessel for social knowledge is embedded in historical and social forces that emerge over time. Many library literacy programs are building learning communities through small group instruction in non-formal and informal settings that are primarily functional and practical, but also empowering and reciprocal because learners teach each other as much as a teacher teaches them. Mutual learning is encouraged whether in a learning pair or in a small group. Other literacy programs direct their efforts to learning pairs where the act of learning is not always relegated to the students or the library user, but to the tutor or librarian in order to help advance the learner’s educational goals. The role of the learner and teacher is a two-way street. Literacy becomes a vehicle for the creation of shared knowledge.

Creating Learner’s Own History through Dialogue

In a 2009 article on the definition of literacy, Daphne Ntiri provides a functional view of literacy that is more in tune with the expectations of the workplace, but also tied to power relations among those who have and those who do not have wealth. She writes, “Literacy has undergone a shift from the traditional, non-engaging paradigm to an open, dialogic approach that is politically energized and possess transformative qualities to enhance understanding of the demands of a changing world.”¹³ A dialogic approach is the interaction among participants in a conversation or dialogue whereby all those engaged act as arcs of knowledge that together build a larger knowledge base. This dialogic approach can be traced to the work of Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. Dialogism describes the relationship that each utterance has with the previous and forthcoming utterances. A book, or a text, is not alone nor does it provide meaning without the intervention of outside dialogues, texts, or voices that intersect it. Martin Nystrand stated, “discourse is dialogic . . .
because it is continually structured by tension, even conflict, between the conversants, between self and other, as one voice “refracts” another.”¹⁴

Discourse is aided by each participant’s history, social role, and context. In a library-based conversation group or book club, the participants provide a window to the text, and their discussion is dialogic, and treated as “thinking devices” and not just as a means to transmit facts.¹⁵ Each participant’s active involvement enhances the thinking of others and of themselves.

Nystrand refers to this exchange as reciprocal teaching, which is a process that is both dialogical and sustained by its focus on experiences relevant to the learners, and on a deeper reflection of the literature—whether in the form of a book in an English conversation group, an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) discussion about American idioms, or while preparing for an interview in a job-seeking class.

As opposed to monologism, learning is enhanced by the interaction of those involved, as in a community of practitioners where participant’s thoughts and responses are taken into account and respected. Dialogue is chained by the meanings carried from one voice to another. As learners construct their own views of what they read in conversation groups or ESOL classes, they contribute to each other’s analysis by their dialogic interaction.

Library literacy programs surveyed promoted this web of “interpretative complexity” in their learning activities, in particular, their small group learning.¹⁶ In their learner-centered approach, literacy programs are powerful contributors and change agents when learners discover they are thinkers and creators of their own history and of the shared history of their community of learners.

Literacy aims at rectifying the historical and cultural oppression people endure, and at transforming the spirit of learners in order to break through political and social injustice.¹⁷ Libraries are no strangers to freedom of information and the ideals of a democratic distribution of knowledge to anyone who walks through the doors.

Building the Global Village through Conversations

The 2008 Urban Libraries Council report, “Welcome Stranger: Public Libraries Build The Global Village,” proposes five strategies for success that can assist in bridging the change experienced by many immigrants adjusting to global migration in the United States. The report places America’s urban libraries at the forefront in building immigrant communities by the library’s accessible information and institutional networks, understanding of local immigrant dynamics, sensitivity to cultural and language differences, building English proficiency, as a bridge to other local institutions, and in the ability to encourage civic engagement.¹⁸ According to the Asian American Justice Center 2007 report, “a growing number of immigrants—especially from Mexico, Latin America, and parts of Southeast Asia—are not only [persons with] Limited English Proficiency (LEP) but also have low levels of formal education and limited literacy skills in their primary languages.”¹⁹ The Alameda County (Calif.) Library literacy program has learners from Afghanistan with the same low levels of native language skills because of decades of war in their country.

Immigrant community development is enhanced by the librarian’s knowledge of immigrant demographics. The potential for public libraries to organize its services to make the information more accessible to community groups can result in a clearer understanding of the issues affecting immigrants.²⁰

The inclusion of literacy programs as a core library service has a significant effect in the rapid transition of immigrants into their communities. In the next section, a series of interviews with library literacy managers provides a picture of the impact their programs have in their service areas.

Helping Learners Become Active Citizens

The five literacy programs represented in this section provided services from 180 to 350 learners in their respective jurisdiction for a total of about 1,300 learners for all five programs. Two programs have literacy services countywide, while three have services in large urban cities. These programs cover areas with a population ranging from 250,000 to over 500,000 ethnically diverse residents. The number of staff averages from three to seven people with full- and part-time workers, including contract teachers. All programs rely on volunteer tutors and outside library funding to operate their tutoring activities. The California Library Literacy Services funds adult basic education tutoring for all programs, with the majority of expenses paid by their local or county libraries. At each program, literacy services are held in multiple locations.

Learners served by these literacy programs include native English speakers, second-language learners, inmates, reentry learners, homeless, families, children and youth, unemployed, people with learning disabilities, residential recovery clients, apartment residents, older adults, library and non-library users, government workers, private industry, and nonprofit employees. In all programs surveyed, library directors supported literacy program expenses and in some cases proactively advocated for library literacy as part of the mission of their library system. One library director was fully supportive of one of the literacy programs, yet, the library staff viewed literacy as inessential to the core services of the library. In light of severe budget cuts, and the unforeseen staffing costs of a newly built library, literacy was not viewed as a library service even though nearly two hundred learners and library users benefited from the service with reading, writing, and work-related instruction.

Library politics and the actual adult basic education program can be at odds. When asked why the literacy manager liked her job, she responded, “I wanted to be a part of direct service, to develop policy and curriculum, to improve adult education in the United States. This position has allowed me to do that.”

Another literacy program director manages a program in a large urban city with approximately 160,000 adults functioning at the lowest literacy levels. According to this literacy manager, 35 percent of the population in her city can be considered to have limited English proficiency. This literacy manager supervises a program for 350 adult learners in basic literacy, ESL classes, workforce-specific instruction, voting, computer labs, and a partnership with the library’s family learning centers at branch locations. The literacy manager predicts that the future of her program lies in a partnership with the library’s Family Learning Centers. Recently, their local adult school budget was cut by 70 percent from $5 million to $1 million.

Managers are aware that many learners from adult schools are seeking services at the library, as well as laid-off workers from business and factory closures. Learners are seeking all levels of ESOL classes and basic education at libraries. Because of budget limitations, literacy programs cannot increase the number of classes or tutors. The literacy staff is not able to maintain program growth demanded by library customers without additional funding for classes, tutor training and promotion, and without the support of library administration.

Tutor recruitment and training was in every literacy manager’s mind. They made a constant effort to encourage outside and peer volunteers to get involved, to advocate for the program, to speak at public representatives’ meetings, and to commit to staying long enough to meet participants’ learning goals. Managers were inspired by the involvement of learners in leading a conversation group, attending a leadership workshop, in peer tutoring, by their involvement in a learner advisory board, and participating in a voting workshop. These activities are seen as essential in encouraging civic involvement among literacy learners, particularly immigrants. Program services were marketed to local immigrant agencies and community groups.

The level of satisfaction was very high among literacy managers because, in the words of a manager, “I can see a permanent impact on people, literacy provides learners with something they never lose, that cannot be taken away.” Another manager said, “I am able to help people. I am engaged on a daily basis with everyone in my program. I go to the community to show the positive things that we do.” The positive outlook by these library staff members were shadowed by the general feeling that libraries relegated literacy at the margins, and not central to the library’s community service mission.

The federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) has funded several innovative projects that have taken the library out of the building and into the community. With LSTA funding, one literacy program has established four free computer labs, and a job-seeking class at three apartment complexes where learners’ interests are combined with reading and writing skills practice. Residents and neighbors can attend any class and learn about how to complete online applications, write a résumé, prepare for an interview, send and receive email, do Internet searches, find online library resources, search the library catalogue and place holds on books, and arrange a delivery through the bookmobile. The same program has expanded its Reading Clubs for second language learners where they read and discuss high-interest literature.

Library literacy programs face a myriad of challenges from budget cuts, to politically charged organizational cultures, to labor union influence, to government procedures and policies, and to programmatic issues such as learner persistence and volunteer recruitment efforts. Nevertheless, several programs have found a balance in program development and service delivery that have increased the learner’s capacity to succeed either in job seeking skills, English proficiency or confidence in everyday life dialogue. Library literacy programs are sites where emerging promising practices can be found in a learner-centered adult education that both inspires and encourages personal advancement and civic participation.

Library literacy programs are able to provide diverse modalities of instruction that work for the learners, at a time that is convenient for learners and with an open-door policy. These literacy programs are integrating ESOL or Adult Basic Education (ABE) instruction with life skills, computer training, job-seeking soft skills, and library usage in a focused contextualized learning environment that is safe and learner-centered.

Libraries are becoming more than just buildings and books. A distributive library is one that encompasses communities without borders, reaching out to learners––including new immigrants. But are public libraries missing the point and avoiding a dialogic process within their institutions by ignoring how important literacy has become as a key element of their strategic planning?

Literacy’s Role in the Future of Public Libraries

Library-based adult literacy programs are major contributors in the education of adult learners in urban, suburban, and rural communities. These programs provide free individual and group instruction during the current economic recession. Many literacy programs are replacing classes offered by adult schools due to budget cuts. The California Library Association lobbied for library funds with literacy as the main banner. The strategy succeeded in releasing funds for California libraries. Library literacy reaches out to an increasing number of immigrants who want to learn English to attain their personal goals.

According to the Asian American Justice Center, there are approximately 4 million LEP adults who are native born. This figure doubled between 2000 and 2005 and “is increasing at a higher rate than is the immigrant population.”²¹ Immigrant populations are more dispersed, and their English proficiency challenges have encouraged new strategies for effective instruction of learners. Some of these encouraging practices include a focus on life-skills instruction, an integration of English language proficiency with job training or GED classes, class schedules that fit the learner’s availability, well-trained teachers and an increase in collaboration and partnership with other community organizations. The literacy programs in this article use many of these strategies and are successfully attaining learners’ goals.

The public library is a little explored informal educational organization where adult literacy services continue to be provided for free and to everyone. It is one of the few remaining government institutions that have consistently stood by its ideals of free information for the masses and by its commitment against the failure to read well. But for how long? Can libraries fail to read well into their future and eliminate literacy as part of their mission of public service? Or can libraries expand their role in community social and economic development and see the role of literacy and education as essential to library members, to civic engagement, and the public good?

REFERENCES

1. Philip Martin and Elizabeth Midley, Population Bulletin Update: Immigration in America 2010 (Washington, D.C.: Population Reference Bureau, 2010).
2. California Library Literacy Services, Twenty Years of California Library Literacy Services, 1984–2004: A Retrospective, informational brochure (Sacramento: California State Library, 2006).
3. Mike Dillon and Christina DiCaro, CLA lobbyists, “Legislative Update: Governor Releases 2013-14 Budget – Library Funding Preserved,” News from the Capitol, email to CLA members, Jan. 10, 2013.
4. National Center for Educational Statistics, “National Assessment of Adult Literacy: State and County Estimates of Low Literacy,” accessed Jan. 29, 2013.
5. US Census Bureau, “2010 Demographic Profile,” accessed Feb.11, 2013.
6. US Census Bureau, “Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000,” accessed Feb. 11, 2013.
7. Rick J. Ashton and Danielle Patrick Milam, Welcome Stranger: Public Libraries Build The Global Village (Chicago: Urban Libraries Council, 2008).
8. Neal Peirce, “Libraries and New Americans: The Indispensable Link,” The Washington Post Writer’s Group, Apr. 13, 2008, accessed Jan. 29, 2013.
9. Jonathan Bowles, A World of Opportunity (New York: Center for Urban Exchange, 2007).
10. Ashton and Milam, Welcome Stranger.
11. Ibid., 5.
12. Luis J. Kong, “Immigration, Racial Profiling, and White Privilege: Community-Based Challenges and Practices for Adult Educators,” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 125 (Spring 2010): 65–77.
13. Daphne W. Ntiri, “Toward a Functional and Culturally Salient Definition of Literacy,” Adult Basic Education and Literacy Journal 3, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 103.
14. Martin Nystrand et al., Opening Dialogue (New York: Columbia University, 1997): 8.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., 77.
17. Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness (New York: Seabury Press, 1973).
18. Ashton and Milam, Welcome Stranger.
19. Asian American Justice Center, Adult Literacy Education In Immigrant Communities: Identifying Policy And Program Priorities For Helping Newcomers Learn English (Washington D.C.: Asian American Justice Center, 2007).
20. Ashton and Milam, Welcome Stranger.
21. Asian American Justice Center, Adult Literacy Education In Immigrant Communities, ix.

The post Failing to Read Well The Role of Public Libraries in Adult Literacy, Immigrant Community Building, and Free Access to Learning first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Fast-forward two decades and by a circuitous route through many jobs, experiences, and locations, I now live in Oakland and am the coordinator of the Second Start program. Most striking to me upon moving to California in 1996 were the resources available to library-based adult literacy programs and the culture of adult learner involvement that permeated these programs. Project Read, our program in North San Mateo County, had many shades of colored paper on hand—all the time! On a level deeper than office supplies, however, was a culture of innovation and creativity that was apparent in programs throughout the Bay Area. Library literacy practitioners were researching, creating, and publishing materials with and for participants in their volunteer-based programs. They had the opportunity to envision and implement a variety of models of teaching and learning; they worked with marginalized people through partnership and leadership development. The design of literacy services included the voices of the adults being served—adult literacy students. The Oakland Readers series demonstrates this ethos.

The structure that comes with being a library program made a world of difference in supporting this vibrancy, and continues to make sense on many levels. Libraries represent a neutral, safe territory in a community and come complete with a culture of lifelong learning, guaranteed confidentiality, and a wealth of materials. Everyone who walks through the door has the potential to learn—there is no “us and them,” and it is nobody else’s business what you’ve come to the library to learn more about. Libraries are committed to providing access to information, and increased literacy skills can make lifelong learning a reality for people who did not learn to read and write as well as they wanted through the traditional route of schooling. Being at the library is a chance to redefine adult learning: The library is not a school for big people who didn’t succeed; instead, it’s a resource for ongoing learning for everyone, regardless of where you fall on the continuum of skills.

Some History of California Library Literacy Services

Second Start was one of the original library-based literacy programs in California. In 1983, State Librarian Gary Strong had the vision to bring adult literacy programs to libraries in California in order to serve people who were not served anywhere else in the community and to expand access to libraries and their many resources. To avoid duplicating already-available adult education services and stave off potential turf battles, the state library worked with the California Department of Education and with community stakeholders to identify adults—English-proficient adults who were not equipped with basic skills to succeed in classroom-based settings—who were not served anywhere else. Strong hired Al Bennett, an adult literacy organizer from Pennsylvania, to use what were then called LSCA (now LSTA) funds to design and implement library literacy programs, and these funds started flowing in 1984. The effects of Proposition 13, a major anti-tax measure passed in California in 1978, were being felt strongly by public institutions at the time. Strong demonstrated vital leadership in the face of criticism from some members of the library community who felt it was not a good time to start something new when libraries were suffering financially as they were.

In a move that helped programs take root and garner local community support, planners at the state library, knowledgeable about many possible models of adult literacy education—some more politically radical than others—held out an “each one teach one” program design. The involvement of community volunteers integral to one-on-one tutoring helped generate buy-in for library literacy programs throughout the state, since most literacy volunteers tend to love their library and can also be quite vocal in their support. Volunteers who had the opportunity to work with adult literacy students helped advocate for and stabilize literacy services as a library function. In 1989, the state legislature with bipartisan effort and support, passed the California Library Services Act, putting language for library-based literacy programs into law. This move stabilized state library matching money for programs for decades to come.

Funding Challenges

In 2011–12, in the throes of massive budget problems in the state of California, funding for California State Library programs was eliminated from the budget. For the first time since 1984, adult literacy programs received no financial support from the state library. This loss of matching funds threatened Second Start’s family literacy programming and computer learning lab. Fortunately, OPL leadership put out funds to see these services function through the remainder of the 2012 fiscal year. Some literacy programs in California closed down, however, and others reduced to an alarming degree the number of students they could serve.

Then, the governor pitched a 2012–13 budget that greatly reduced the state library budget and did not include any funding for public libraries. In a turn of events that seems nothing short of a miracle given the dire financial straits of the state of California, $4.7 million was restored to the 2012–13 budget, with $2.82 of that distributed among library literacy programs. California Library Association (CLA) lobbyists Mike Dillon and Christina DiCaro worked tirelessly to get political support to put money back in the budget. Hundreds and hundreds of library supporters, including adult literacy learners and volunteer tutors, wrote letters to members of the senate and assembly budget subcommittees. Our regional network of library literacy program providers in the Bay Area worked together to contribute to this letter-writing campaign, with our network leaders coordinating with CLA lobbying efforts. Students and tutors told their compelling stories to lawmakers at budget subcommittee hearings in Sacramento. Staff people contributed their personal time to this effort since direct political advocacy on work time is inappropriate. Adult literacy students are natural, effective participants in advocacy efforts like this one. One of the main purposes of adult literacy education is to have a voice in the world and to be taken seriously in more and more social contexts. Learning about the issues, writing letters, speaking in public, being able to advocate for your point of view, and influencing public policy to support your own interests are all activities that strengthen that voice. Ultimately, a unanimous, bipartisan vote in these subcommittees restored the money back into the budget. It was an example of how democracy can work when people take the time to voice their interests. The way library users, literacy program participants included, responded to this budget crisis paints a picture of how literacy programs are part and parcel of larger library workings and interests.

Funding for Second Start, like all other library services, comes from OPL which is a department of the City of Oakland. The program also has a solid base of donors and the capacity to work with library administration on outside grant sources. The state library uses a formula that matches locally raised funds, taking into account a number of measures including the size of each program. Most all of Second Start’s library funding comes from Measure Q, a dedicated parcel tax for OPL passed with overwhelming support in 2004 to stabilize library services for years to come. Measure Q itself has become a real lifesaver for library services these past several years, as the general economy has slumped and finances in Oakland have taken a beating.

In 2011, Second Start was pegged for outright elimination, along with fourteen of the seventeen branch libraries in the OPL system. One budget balancing idea on the table in city hall proposed cutting general funds to OPL below the minimum amount legally necessary to allow for the collection of the Measure Q parcel tax. The budget would have gone from $24 million to $4 million. Library supporters in Oakland came out in droves to city council meetings, and library users, library friends groups, and OPL staff people—once again on their own time—devised a savvy campaign to publicize the issue and to organize advocacy efforts to save the library. Second Start supporters, including adult learners and volunteers, appeared at awareness-raising events and at city council meetings along with library supporters of every other stripe imaginable. In a by-the-skin-of-the-teeth decision, major cuts to library services (including the closure of Second Start) were avoided. Looking back to the beginning of library literacy programs, the voices and advocacy work of literacy students and community volunteers continue to be a bedrock of support and survival.

The integration of literacy programs into libraries has become part of the physical architecture of buildings. I have worked in library basements and closets, but as new libraries are built, they often feature built-in literacy program space. The Second Start program moved into some new space in 2012. While the main library in downtown Oakland is not a new building (then-Governor Earl Warren sat on its front steps at the library’s dedication in 1951), our library leadership planned and saw through the construction of dedicated space for Second Start. Our new digs include classroom space, a computer learning lab, new furniture, windows all around, and a view of Lake Merritt. Recently, California State Library Programs Consultant Carla Lehn said that, “In California, we have successfully integrated these programs so libraries see them as core services that are part of what libraries do.”¹ Being housed in a specially designed, centralized location at OPL physically embodies this sentiment.

Second Start’s journey from the main library in the early-1980s back to the main library in 2012 has been action packed. The program’s adventures have dovetailed with the general health of the field of adult literacy education. By the time the California State Library made LSCA money available in 1984, OPL had already experimented with adult literacy services for several years. A staff person dedicated a few hours each week to a volunteer program that operated out of a box containing the names and numbers of students and tutors. The program started with nothing, but hung in there and steadily picked up steam from the mid-1980s and into the early 2000s. Talented leadership and a wide variety of competitive grants and donors solidified Second Start’s financial health and capacity to serve more and more students. The program moved out of the library building in 1989 to downtown office spaces in order to accommodate an ever-growing number of adult learners.

Adult literacy was popular in those years and enjoyed support from the media, elected officials, and funders. The National Literacy Act passed in 1991, adding an agency dedicated to adult literacy, the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL), to the panoply of federal programs. For many years, Second Start received money from the NIFL’s research arm, the National Center for the Study of Adult Literacy and Learning, to research persistence in adult literacy education. The Oakland Readers series, and other student-driven publications, were published in several iterations over the years with grant money from a variety of sources. The acknowledgments of funding support found on the inside covers of these books read like an impressive “who’s who” directory of foundations and grant sources and adult literacy supporters, all with the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund figuring prominently. Second Start was in on it all.

Successes

In pointing to Second Start’s successes, a good place to start is the one-on-one tutoring model. While adult literacy students and volunteer tutors often come from different socioeconomic groups, when paired up, they might form meaningful, long-term bonds that are transformative for everyone involved. It’s a unique contribution to social cohesion in Oakland. While low literacy skills are persistent and systemic in the United States (93 million adults rank in the lower levels of the most recent national assessment of functional literacy skills²), they are often a source of personal shame and regret that individuals shoulder alone. Second Start is a place where people can tell their stories, belong to a larger community of learning, and gain a forward-looking view of lifelong learning. Volunteer tutors from the community participate in fifteen hours of tutor training before we match them with a student. Tutors learn to develop activities that include not just writing and reading strategies for phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension practice, but that also address what learners want or need to do in the roles they play in their everyday life.

Four main purposes bring students to adult literacy education: (1) the desire to have a voice in the world and be taken seriously, (2) the ability to take independent action, (3) to gain access to information, and (4) to learn how to learn effectively in a fast-changing society.³ We have no set curriculum and no standardized testing; service is individually geared to each learner. The driving question for instruction in Second Start is, “What do you want to learn about or be able to do?” Recent achievements from the past couple months are as varied as the individuals in the program. They include registering to vote, voting and reading about election results, getting a library card, reading a map for work, finishing a book on Muhammed Ali, learning about blood donation guidelines, passing the driving test, visiting a hardware store to practice construction terminology, and writing analyses of dreams.

Tutoring pairs work together on a wide variety of interests and needs. Common to all successful matches is growth in self-confidence. Take for example, Randall and Dan. This tutoring pair shows how far confidence and partnership can go in learning together. Randall has studied in Second Start for more than two years now, first in a small reading practice group led by a staff person, and then with his tutor, Dan. He came to the program because despite having gone through school, he didn’t gain adequate skills. Randall wanted to pursue his dream of someday going to college. He felt that having a degree would help him go into business some day and he could achieve his dreams of helping people.

Working with Dan, Randall has been able to move through some basic skills classes at a local community college, which eventually lead to enrollment in courses for credit. He recently enrolled in classes that will eventually transfer toward a degree. Dan has helped Randall every step of the way, helping him learn to read, “1,000 times better,” organize materials to study, function in a classroom setting, and talk to teachers. In discussing his experiences Randall credits Dan for helping him pursue his passions and “for making me a priority. I love him for that, and for his confidence in me to achieve things. Sometimes Dan is more motivated than I am when life looks dark. He brings sun and light to that darkness.”⁴

While his long-term goal is a college degree, Randall has been able to help other people and make impressive differences in the world around him. One of his driving passions is HIV/AIDS awareness and education, as Randall has had friends with the disease who have suffered and died. He and Dan worked with astonishing dedication this past year to organize an HIV/AIDS awareness and education event. Together they planned out what the structure of the event would be: an American Idol type event including musical acts punctuated with an educational component of stories told by young people living with HIV. They realized they needed a venue and they brought in the support of the community college’s student government so it could be held for free at the college’s facilities. Randall recruited all the hip hop, jazz, and R&B talent. His work was written about in the local media and Dan helped arrange recognition for the event from US Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Oakland Mayor Jean Quan proclaimed April 12, 2012, as Hip Hop 4 HIV, Jazz and R&B Community College Showcase Day in the City of Oakland. Ultimately 250 people came and nearly seventy young people got tested for HIV in exchange for free admission to the event.

Randall said, “Dan can be modest if he wants to,” and adds, “but I wouldn’t be in the position I am today without him. I really excelled when I got tutoring. I could see progress.”⁵ Dan has really been able to attach skills to Randall’s interests and aspirations and considers tutoring an ongoing learning experience himself. Most tutoring pairs don’t have such a large-scale visible impact on the community around them, but they do develop relationships and work together to improve basic skills and gain confidence in order to address what really matters in a person’s life.

While one-on-one tutoring remains a central component of the Second Start program, we also offer other vital services. Students can participate in small learning groups led by a staff person, a computer learning lab with the added opportunity to receive specialized tutoring on computer-related job seeking activities, the support and guidance of a student on staff and family literacy programming for adults with children in their lives. We regularly offer workshops and learning opportunities that engage different permutations of students and tutors, depending on their interests. They have participated in offerings as varied as poetry writing; recorded conversations with the StoryCorps organization; strategy sessions to improve phonemic awareness; workshops for families that include a family literacy activity with free book giveaways and dinner; voting information meetings from the League of Women Voter; training on software that reads any text out loud; and two job skills workshops on interviewing and how to keep and succeed on a job.

Program Challenges

People who need literacy services the most might have the toughest time finding a program and might not have a minimum level of stability necessary to make a long-term commitment. Compared to twenty years ago, both students and tutors have far less time for tutoring. They have less-stable employment and schedules and seem far more stressed economically with the challenges of holding things together.

Some research from the National Institute for Literacy about adult learning and reading theory has helped adult literacy programs become more responsive to the immediate needs adults bring to literacy learning. While we have more tools to help tutoring pairs identify activities and materials that will have the most relevance in their limited time together, attracting students who have the means to meet a tutor regularly and practice new skills has become a major concern for programs like Second Start. Long work hours, juggling more than one job, access to child care, transportation costs, health, and personal crises all present obstacles to continuity.

Crushing poverty and the pressures on working poor people are so much more evident now. The cumulative effects of welfare reform from the late 1990s, added to the economic pressures of living in the expensive Bay Area make regular participation in learning a challenge. The aging of the Great Migration population in the East Bay represents the end of an era of solid jobs that could support families. It is far less common to meet native English speaking adults who have never been to school because they worked as sharecroppers in the South before moving to Oakland. Instead, many urban-raised adults either left school before graduating or were not served adequately during their formal education as children. Or, immigrants who have lived in the United States for years can communicate well in English but have very little formal schooling. Many students today are un- or under-employed and might race from job to job to try and make ends meet. Some have been shut out of the workforce long-term. Add to that the changing definitions of what being literate means anymore—technology skills and greater demands for education credentials for entry-level jobs raise the bar higher and higher. The need for adult literacy education is greater now than ever before.⁶

Second Start asks both students and volunteer tutors to commit to a minimum of six months of tutoring on a regular, once or twice-a-week basis. This expectation lets people know that building skills takes time and practice and doesn’t happen overnight. But that can be quite a high hoop to jump through. At a recent Bay Area library literacy network meeting, programs reported that many tutoring pairs can only meet once a week. While Second Start’s computer learning lab and various workshop events can serve students with irregular schedules, and while offering small group learning is a way of helping people who might not be able to commit to a regular volunteer tutor, it is reasonable to question how much progress can be made in so little time. Given that the need for adult literacy services is still great, but that adults have that much more difficulty participating in it, Second Start has to reconsider the way services have always been delivered.

Our relocation to the main library in 2012 represents a move away from one hub of activity at the West Oakland Library toward a larger presence throughout the city. Second Start’s headquarters are at the main library, but the OPL system has eighteen branches serving many diverse communities in a huge geographic area. Through branches all over town, Second Start has the ability to raise awareness of adult literacy education. The program now offers tutor training workshops at four different libraries. In order to more conveniently serve students and tutors, we have begun conducting new student orientation meetings and individualized student interviews and assessments at branches closer to participants’ homes and workplaces. Tutoring pairs meet at libraries convenient to both the student and the tutor, and Second Start offers a variety of small group instruction programs taught by a staff person in three libraries in different parts of Oakland.

Developing community partnerships outside the library is that much more critical now, not just for student referrals to the program, but also for going outside the walls of the library to serve people where they already spend time. One successful venture that holds possibility for future activity is a partnership Second Start has built with an organization called Center Point. Center Point is an organization that holds a contract with the California Department of Corrections to serve Oakland residents on parole. Our goal at Center Point is to serve adults who need some literacy services when and where they can access them and to raise awareness of and build bridges to OPL and to our library-based program.

We have a stellar volunteer tutor, Denise, who has volunteered as a one-on-one tutor for Second Start since 2009. The student she has worked with has since grown by leaps and bounds. He passed his driver’s test, enrolled in a job training program, and started taking classes at the local community college. Since her student needs her less and less, Denise was looking forward to a new commitment in Second Start. Denise had years of volunteer literacy experience before joining our program. She is also a former teacher, and she is particularly interested in the criminal justice population. It needs to be said––Denise is a dynamo with extraordinary interpersonal skills.

As a volunteer, she has gotten to know the Center Point staff and has been vital in building a positive, warm, collaborative relationship on which we can build. Denise regularly tutors students at Center Point to help them build skills they will need to eventually pass the GED. Computer skills are a major need as well, as access to and the ability to use computers is an integral piece of literacy. Many people coming out of prison have never used the Internet. Denise begins her work with each person there by helping them get an email account and complete a library card application. In characterizing her work she said, “I’m not providing everything. I’m pointing them to resources and the main one is the library. They all live near a library, even if they’re homeless.”⁷

In addition to straight-up skills tutoring to help people move toward the GED, Denise has been able to help many parolees study on a drop-in basis for the driver’s test. She helps them complete job applications and housing forms as well as community college enrollment paperwork. Leaving prison can be a disorienting experience. Denise talks with parolees about concrete next steps in their lives, giving them confidence along the way. One of her regular students, James, says that Denise, “pushes you, stays on top to help you out, wants to see you make it just as much as you do. I would look out for her.”⁸

The library has so much to offer the clients of Center Point. The OPL branch manager closest to Center Point recently visited parolees with information about relevant library services, and Second Start’s family literacy person was able to make a presentation there and connect Center Point with free children’s books to give to parolees, as many have children or grandchildren. Participants at the center report going to the library for the first time to check email and to look on Craigslist for housing and employment. Some work with Second Start tutors on their basic math and reading skills.

The biggest barrier for serving people on parole is the lack of consistency. Parolees get re-arrested, they get removed from their clean and sober housing for violating parole, people have been shot and stabbed; parolees’ lives are generally unstable. The bridges are slow to build as this population trusts no one. But as Denise and the other wonderful volunteers she attracts, including her own family and friends, keep showing up, trust is growing.

Groundwork for our partnership at Center Point was carefully laid out through a series of meetings with the leadership there. But because Second Start attracts fantastic volunteers, we are able to deploy someone like Denise to follow her passions and do so much on behalf of the program and the library. Not all volunteers would feel happy or confident working with people on parole in Oakland. It’s important to give potential volunteers realistic expectations about what the experience might be like. We have attracted additional volunteer tutors to Center Point through a workshop structure that gives them a chance to observe the goings on there on a limited, no-commitment-required basis.

Once a month, Denise organizes a Second Start mock interview workshop at Center Point. Clients practice interviewing in front of a panel of three or four people and get immediate and written feedback about what went well and what could improve. Second Start volunteers can check out Center Point by either participating as an interviewer or simply by observing the workshop. Several more Second Start tutors have decided to tutor on site there after participating through the workshop.

This mock interview workshop takes place regularly at Center Point, but also travels easily. We have had wonderful success rolling it out at the library with Second Start students and volunteers who entered the program through our more traditional route. Participants both at Center Point and at the library have been able to take the skills they’ve gained and immediately put them to use, as several people have practiced their interviews and had successful real-life interviews—and job offers—shortly thereafter. In addition to mock interviews, we have offered a writing workshop and a job skills workshop that have traveled successfully between the library and Center Point. In the future, we hope to see people fresh out of prison gradually gain stability in life and commit more time to lifelong learning at OPL.

Looking to the Future

So many service providers across the country have scaled back drastically or have disappeared altogether. (The Blue Gargoyle shut its doors in 2009.) In Oakland, adult education services through the school district’s adult school are hanging on by a thread after having its budget decimated in the past few years. Our community college system’s transitional programs are endangered, and other entities have scaled back tremendously or have simply disappeared. The funding scene for adult literacy education is truly in a different place than it was in the 1980s and 1990’s, starting with the National Institute for Literacy that was defunded in 2008. Second Start, with tremendous support as a library department, has weathered many storms. Given the economic and social challenges we face in Oakland. our urban library literacy program must explore more routes to deliver relevant and effective adult literacy services to the resource-strapped people who need them. We will build on the success we’ve had engaging learners inside and outside our library’s walls with excellent volunteers, the smart use of technology, and through meaningful collaborations with community partners. In any case, it is imperative we honor the roots of California Library Literacy Services and work in partnership with the adults we serve to solve problems and innovate.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. Carla Lehn, telephone interview with the author, Nov. 6, 2012.
2. National Center on Education Statistics (NCES), “National Assessment of Adult Literacy” (2003), U.S. Department of Education, 2005.
3. Sondra Gayle Stein, Equipped for the Future: A Customer-Driven Vision for Adult Literacy and Lifelong Learning, National Institute for Literacy, 1995.
4. Personal interview with the author, Oct. 4, 2012.
5. Ibid.
6. It is estimated that 19 percent of adults in Alameda County score at below basic functional literacy levels. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “National Assessment of Adult Literacy” (2003). And with the city’s high school dropout rate placed at 37 percent––the 2nd highest in California––we know that percentage is probably much higher in Oakland. KQED, “New High School Dropout Data: Oakland at 37 Percent.”
7. Personal interview with the author, Nov. 28, 2012.
8. Personal interview with the author, Nov. 28, 2012.

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