By JOHN Y. COLE
In his keynote address on July 21 in the Library's Montpelier Room, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) launched the Center for the Book's new "Reading Powers the Mind" family literacy project and a workshop, which was held on July 22-23 in the Library's Mumford Room.
Especially proud of New Mexico's participation in the project, Bingaman also praised the key role of all public libraries in community-building and fighting illiteracy. Impressed by the variety of projects included in the Reading Powers the Mind initiative, he commented that the Center for the Book was an ideal national "umbrella" for stimulating reading and literacy promotion partnerships at the state and community level.
Each of the Center for the Book's 12 new Reading Powers the Mind projects highlights a different kind of family literacy partnership between a public or state library and community organizations. The endeavor has been organized by Center for the Book consultant Virginia Mathews.
Funding for Reading Powers the Mind has been provided by a recent $409,000 contribution to the Center for the Book from the Viburnum Foundation. From 1998 to 2003, the foundation awarded $3,000 grants to 222 rural libraries in 10 states as part of the Center for the Book/Viburnum Foundation Family Literacy Project. During this period, the national center, with help from its affiliated state centers for the book, organized and staffed 12 three-day training workshops throughout the country.
New Mexico is represented in the new project by the Farmington Public Library. In her workshop remarks, Farmington Public Library Youth Services Coordinator Flo Trujillo captured the spirit of the effort and its potential: "We want to demonstrate that libraries do more than just loan books; [that they] can also deal effectively with many of a community's problems as well as its potentials. We are proud to represent the state of New Mexico in this wonderful, optimistic project."
The Farmington Public Library and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Farmington are combining resources for a program that encourages club members and their families to read a story together and to record that experience on a cassette. In addition, parents or grandparents will retell the story in Spanish or Navajo. A photograph will be taken of the family, and the cassette will be made available for Boys & Girls Club members. Community partners in this and related projects include the Mayor's Teen Advisory Council, the Farmington Daily Times, the San Juan Partnership for MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), the Head Start Center at San Juan College and the Shiprock Medical Center/San Juan Regional Medical Center for a "Babies for Books" project.
Major speakers at the July workshop included E. Dollie Wolverton, chief of the Education Service Branch of the National Head Start Bureau; Shay Bilchik, president and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America; Elaine Meyers, head of children's services at the Phoenix Public Library; and William Woodruff, deputy administrator of the Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Delinquency Prevention, who told the 70 invited conference participants that he "would much rather build a library than a prison."
Other projects in the program include:
Alabama. The Ashland Public Library and the B.B. Comer Memorial Library in Sylacauga, in conjunction with the Ashland Head Start program, the Clay County Department of Human Resources and the Clay County Arts League, will present a project aimed at troubled youth. The Comer Library will target clients of the Sylacauga Alliance for Family Literacy, which helps parents learn how to use local library and community resources.
Arizona. The Chandler Public Library will promote literacy and library use among families residing in public housing by visiting three public housing sites for a four-week series of programs at each site.
Arkansas. The Fort Smith Public Library will revitalize its retired bookmobile program, transforming it into a mobile library "story time on wheels" that will visit child care and family centers to teach parents and children how to read together. Community partners will include Fort Smith United Way, the Even Start/Parent as Teachers program in the Fort Smith Public Schools and Fort Smith Head Start Child and Family Services Inc.
Georgia. The Clayton County Library System, headquartered in Jonesboro, will make presentations every two weeks to new classes of parents in the county's "Welfare to Work" program. The organizational partners are the Georgia Department of Family and Children's Services; the Clayton County Extension Office, a division of the University of Georgia; two elementary schools; and the "Kinship Care" project, part of a multiagency task force headed by the state library.
Louisiana. The Vermilion Parish Library, through its Abbeville branch, will present "We Can Make It," a series of programs aimed at at-risk families. Community partners include the Vermilion Parish Health Unit, the Acadiana Works Boys & Girls Club, the Vermilion Parish School Board and local fire and police departments.
Mississippi. The family literacy project developed by the Elizabeth Jones Library in Grenada promotes intergenerational events for participating parents and their children. Partners include the Adult Basic Education Program of the Grenada School District, the Grenada County Jail/Correctional Services Corporation and the Grenada Head Start Center.
Oklahoma. The Public Library of Enid and Garfield County will present a family literacy project aimed at three audiences: Head Start children who will be entering kindergarten in the fall of 2004, Title I summer school students who need help with reading comprehension and Teen Library Aids who will mentor the children.
South Carolina. The York County Library in Rock Hill, in partnership with the Rock Hill Resource Center, is developing a project that will expand services for Hispanic families in York County.
Tennessee. The Fentress County Public Library's family literacy project will focus on at-risk teens aged 12-18. The library will work with selected teens to help them deal with real-life situations.
Texas. The Val Verde County Library in Del Rio has created the "Library-Power Box" program that encourages families to choose reading as one resource for examining and solving their current social and relationship issues. Partners include three Del Rio programs: STAR (Service to At-Risk Young) Family Services, the Del Rio High School Learning Center and the Blue Ribbon Program of the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans.
West Virginia. The Summers County Public Library will present "Book Buddies," a reading mentoring program for struggling readers from the Summers County Middle School. The mentors will be volunteers from the Summers County High School book discussion group.
This is a regular column by Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole.