Today's Successful Saturday will focus on Adult Literacy. I have posted a couple of times on the importance of Adult Literacy. This will document how my community changed its perception in 18 months.
When I first worked at my library, many patrons would come up and ask if we had a literacy program. After multiple inquiries in just a few weeks of working there I discovered that we had a literacy program several years ago that was volunteer run. It failed due to lack of support, no new blood, and volunteers just getting tired. The problem still existed, but no one was there to solve it. I always wanted to find a way to restart the program, but never received support from administration. Once I became the administration, I wanted it to be my first goal. The local United Way helped pave the way by releasing a report that states Adult Literacy would be one of their major goals in their strategic plan. This goal was one of three. When domestic violence and services to seniors came up, hoards of people came from everywhere and took up the challenge, but when Adult literacy came up, only the sound of crickets were heard.
Finally, a handful of people met with the United Way to discuss ways to combat Adult Illiteracy. Most of the people and organizations were actually early literacy experts or family literacy, no adult literacy people. What was shocking about our discussion was the fact that Adult Literacy was not funded or supported any longer. Family Literacy and Early Literacy were the big buzzwords. Adult Literacy hasn't been funded since the 1990s and is not a good path to go down. After some research, I found that many Federal Adult Literacy Programs were getting cut as part of No Child Left Behind. I got the general impression that Adult Literacy wasn't cool anymore.
It is difficult in a library when you have so many patrons grasping for any way to find help. We had some old videotapes for Adult Literacy- hooked on phonics type things. I found it embarrassing that a library that is supposed to introduce people to the joy of reading couldn't help an adult who need to learn how to read.
The United Way did a study of the entire county. I felt that this was really a cause of the people, but it would still be difficult for me to cram it down everyone's throat. This is another reason we did our own strategic plan. Again, with people from the community, they came to the conclusion that the library's number one priority should be Adult Literacy. The plan provided attention for the problem and spread the word about what we were doing. Other agencies began to contact us about their needs for Adult Literacy programs. The National Assessment of Adult Literacy came out with a study the summer after our Strategic Plan that stated 19% of our adults could not read at level 1. They could not read instructions on a can, fill out a job application, or read a simple story to a child. With the help of the United Way, these stats, and the help from a host of community members, we formed the Adult Literacy Task Force.
The Task Force meetings hashed out all the things we had discussed before. It will be a hard project. We won't necessarily get support from above or necessarily from funders. It will be difficult to reach the students since we can't advertise and can only do word of mouth marketing. It will also be difficult to hang onto tutors. It was one of the problems with the previous literacy councils. A tutor coordinator would be supposed to work 20 hours, but would really work 40 or more. There was a really strong aversion to doing something that burned out so many people before.
In the end, we decided that we needed to hire a coordinator. They needed to be a people person and highly dedicated. Eventually, they will probably need some sort of vehicle or bookmobile since transportation is a problem in our community. Very big needs here.
After getting shot down in trying to hire a grant person, I decided to reorganize staff so that a staff member would be the tutor coordinator. They would also need to be a master tutor trainer since we are far away from any volunteer literacy program. After inquiring into several programs, we decided on the Literacy Volunteers of Tucson. They trained our librarian for a small fee. She also received further training online at the Verizon Literacy Campus. One year after we finished our strategic plan, we had our first big project, we were ready to accept tutors to train for our Adult Literacy Tutoring Program.
The kicker is that our librarian completed the training right before the library's annual report was due. After the report to City Council, the big banner on the paper was “Literacy Concerns Library”. I touched on this last week so I won't rehash it, but afterward we received several calls from people wanting to be tutors. We ended up with seven tutors. After some further contact, we received four students.
It gets better. We then received a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act providing us with a Literacy Mobile. This will allow the tutor to go into the community and provide assistance remotely. Again, this was covered on the front page of the local paper. The editor to the local paper even wrote an editorial on the importance of Adult Literacy. We announced the program to other organizations. We then received calls from the local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs to provide talks on literacy since it will be one of their initiatives. In the end we received an amazing amount of political, monetary, and people support for our program. A year before this, it was said that Adult Literacy wasn't the way to go, but with some hard work, determination, and luck, we were able to change the perception of the entire community. After giving several talks to groups, we are raising the awareness of this need and how it affects the community on an economic level. If you have a business in town and can't hire workers that can comprehend instructions, you have poor production and accidents on the job. The need is definitely sinking in.
Last week, a gentleman came in and asked about the program. Our librarian came and talked to him, then sat down in a room and did his assessment. It was nice to feel that now, people can come to us and get help. The best part was happened yesterday. I was on the reference desk and I could hear a literacy tutor session. I could hear the student identifying her alphabet, “A...B...C..” and then reading some words from flash cards. It was a great moment.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Flickr keeps book on libraries
Great mention about libraries who use Flickr from Cnet Central. A great job from Library Stuff for the work on his blog providing attention to libraries everywhere and the different ways they provided services.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Library district vital to growing community
One article and one opinion piece from the Eastern Arizona Courier. Great way to advertise the library is to get away from the "just books idea". Every library has some sort of activity, even Summer Reading Programs exist in volunteer libraries. It is important to focus on all the library does. These are great examples.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Successful Saturdays: “Will we need libraries in the future?” or How I learned to stop worrying and love the library
Successful Saturdays: “Will we need libraries in the future?” or How I learned to stop worrying and love the library
I remember reading somewhere that when you get a job as a a manager it is very important to win early, even on something small. It means that you must do something noteworthy within the first six months or year, something that makes the papers, shakes things up, gets some attention. Successful Saturdays will document those wins, big and small. It, of course, will be my favorite installment.
“In the future, will we still need libraries?” or How I learned to stop worrying and love the library
During the first six months of my stint as manager a City Councilman asked me, “In the future, will we still need libraries?”. I replied, of course we will libraries serve purposes as centers for information, reading, and a common area for all the public to go and learn. It was a generic response, but it prompted a fear, if members of your governing and budgetary author wonder if you will even exist in the next ten years, it does not bode well for you. It is important to change those perceptions by being a storyteller, demonstrating all the things a library does, and shaping the services to that person's interests. For instance, if the person is a businessman, you need to talk about how the library services businesses, how the library helps create good employees through its services, or how the library stimulates economic development.
A great way to change perceptions is to develop a strategic plan. In that process you gather up major organizations and members of the community to talk about their needs and how the library can meet them. You will get a lot of, “I didn't know the library could do that!” I developed a strategic plan through the help of the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records using the Planning for Results process sponsored by PLA. Before I began the process, I got buy-in from my boss and had her come to the Arizona State Library conference. One of the programs was to talk about the process of Planning for Results. The department that the library is in was about to conduct a Master Plan as well, so it was very critical to have a strategic plan so that its needs were more pronounced.
I rounded up 19 people from the Chamber of Commerce, to the United Way, from the local newspaper, to library staff, library board, and Friends of the Library members. We developed a strategic plan which ended up focusing on Adult Literacy, Lifelong Learning, and developing the library as a community commons. It received attention in the paper and it began to change the perception of the library in the community. “The library is the hotspot of the future. It's where the action is.” was the headline for our planning committee update in the local paper.
Once the plan was in place, it actually received less attention than I had hoped. Library staff quietly worked to develop the plan and action and get started accomplishing the year 1 goals. It was not until the library's annual report, one year later, that the success was to begin. During the annual report, we stated how we had already started an Adult Literacy Tutoring program, developed programs for teens, and established lifelong learning programs on financial health, and even programs in Spanish that were successful. We rolled the presentation into what is called Performance Based Budgeting. The City was not to develop this style until the following year, but because of our plan, we did it faster. The same councilman, who had wondered if libraries were even to exist in a few years, specifically commented "I just wanted to thank you for the performance-based approach to your planning. It certainly is an excellent approach and the results are very obvious that the approach is working. I commend you for being visionary and getting out in front of that. It's an excellent way to plan for the library."
The article in the paper the next day was a big headline, front page, above the fold “LITERACY CONCERNS LIBRARY”. We could not get better attention than that. We immediately received dozens of calls from patrons wanting to become tutors. Adult Literacy became a major buzz word in the city, getting picked up as an editorial from the local newspaper's editor, further articles on the library and a grant award from the Library Services and Technology Act from the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records. Another success in the change of perception was from the same councilman when the grant was accepted by the city for a new bookmobile.
"The reason I asked to have this pulled off the consent agenda is I think this is such a very important project for the community to be aware of. In reading the application, it points out that at the time the literacy study was done (in 2003) 19 percent of adults in the city cannot read at level one. About 4,000 residents could not read well enough to fill out a job application, read a food label or read a simple story to a child. And it talks about the economic impact that would have. This project addresses that aggressively. I think that you and the staff are to be commended for that. It's an urgent need. This will address citizens with an opportunity to move through the literacy program, and I just think it's something that we ought to be more aware is being done. And the mobility of the lab, taking it out to people rather than people having to come to it, is certainly another excellent feature."
Again, a front page headline documenting the award from the grant, and the attention was led by the same councilman who pondered if we needed libraries in the future. We went from a where is the library and what does it do perspective, to major moves and shakers in the community getting behind us and speaking out for us. It is a great transformation for the entire community. I will detail a little more about each of these pieces and successes separately, but this is the corner stone of all of our success.
I remember reading somewhere that when you get a job as a a manager it is very important to win early, even on something small. It means that you must do something noteworthy within the first six months or year, something that makes the papers, shakes things up, gets some attention. Successful Saturdays will document those wins, big and small. It, of course, will be my favorite installment.
“In the future, will we still need libraries?” or How I learned to stop worrying and love the library
During the first six months of my stint as manager a City Councilman asked me, “In the future, will we still need libraries?”. I replied, of course we will libraries serve purposes as centers for information, reading, and a common area for all the public to go and learn. It was a generic response, but it prompted a fear, if members of your governing and budgetary author wonder if you will even exist in the next ten years, it does not bode well for you. It is important to change those perceptions by being a storyteller, demonstrating all the things a library does, and shaping the services to that person's interests. For instance, if the person is a businessman, you need to talk about how the library services businesses, how the library helps create good employees through its services, or how the library stimulates economic development.
A great way to change perceptions is to develop a strategic plan. In that process you gather up major organizations and members of the community to talk about their needs and how the library can meet them. You will get a lot of, “I didn't know the library could do that!” I developed a strategic plan through the help of the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records using the Planning for Results process sponsored by PLA. Before I began the process, I got buy-in from my boss and had her come to the Arizona State Library conference. One of the programs was to talk about the process of Planning for Results. The department that the library is in was about to conduct a Master Plan as well, so it was very critical to have a strategic plan so that its needs were more pronounced.
I rounded up 19 people from the Chamber of Commerce, to the United Way, from the local newspaper, to library staff, library board, and Friends of the Library members. We developed a strategic plan which ended up focusing on Adult Literacy, Lifelong Learning, and developing the library as a community commons. It received attention in the paper and it began to change the perception of the library in the community. “The library is the hotspot of the future. It's where the action is.” was the headline for our planning committee update in the local paper.
Once the plan was in place, it actually received less attention than I had hoped. Library staff quietly worked to develop the plan and action and get started accomplishing the year 1 goals. It was not until the library's annual report, one year later, that the success was to begin. During the annual report, we stated how we had already started an Adult Literacy Tutoring program, developed programs for teens, and established lifelong learning programs on financial health, and even programs in Spanish that were successful. We rolled the presentation into what is called Performance Based Budgeting. The City was not to develop this style until the following year, but because of our plan, we did it faster. The same councilman, who had wondered if libraries were even to exist in a few years, specifically commented "I just wanted to thank you for the performance-based approach to your planning. It certainly is an excellent approach and the results are very obvious that the approach is working. I commend you for being visionary and getting out in front of that. It's an excellent way to plan for the library."
The article in the paper the next day was a big headline, front page, above the fold “LITERACY CONCERNS LIBRARY”. We could not get better attention than that. We immediately received dozens of calls from patrons wanting to become tutors. Adult Literacy became a major buzz word in the city, getting picked up as an editorial from the local newspaper's editor, further articles on the library and a grant award from the Library Services and Technology Act from the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records. Another success in the change of perception was from the same councilman when the grant was accepted by the city for a new bookmobile.
"The reason I asked to have this pulled off the consent agenda is I think this is such a very important project for the community to be aware of. In reading the application, it points out that at the time the literacy study was done (in 2003) 19 percent of adults in the city cannot read at level one. About 4,000 residents could not read well enough to fill out a job application, read a food label or read a simple story to a child. And it talks about the economic impact that would have. This project addresses that aggressively. I think that you and the staff are to be commended for that. It's an urgent need. This will address citizens with an opportunity to move through the literacy program, and I just think it's something that we ought to be more aware is being done. And the mobility of the lab, taking it out to people rather than people having to come to it, is certainly another excellent feature."
Again, a front page headline documenting the award from the grant, and the attention was led by the same councilman who pondered if we needed libraries in the future. We went from a where is the library and what does it do perspective, to major moves and shakers in the community getting behind us and speaking out for us. It is a great transformation for the entire community. I will detail a little more about each of these pieces and successes separately, but this is the corner stone of all of our success.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)