"Today, literacy and reading promotion are hot topics," said Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole on March 17 in welcoming participants to the center's annual "idea exchange" for its national reading promotion partners.
"The Center for the Book has been in the business since 1977, and I cannot recall a more active or upbeat time. I especially want to thank those organizations that were part of this partnership network when it started in 1987 and have stayed with us. I also offer a special welcome to the many new organizations that have joined us in recent years and are here today to share their best ideas and to find new project partners."
Forty educational and civic organizations sent representatives to the meeting in the Library's Mumford Room, which was decorated with reading promotion posters and filled with descriptive literature about projects sponsored by reading promotion partners.
In her remarks, Center for the Book Program Officer Maurvene D. Williams described the center's expanding Web site www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook and its increasing importance to all of the Center for the Book's activities. In addition to descriptions about the center's projects and publications, it includes information and links to more than 300 organizations in the United States and around the world that promote books, reading, literacy and libraries. The list includes universities and scholarly institutions concerned with book and library history. Ms. Williams cited statistics about the Web site's steadily increasing use: in February 2000, for example, 23,030 transactions were handled by the center's site, compared to 21,172 in February 1999.
Anne Boni, the center's program specialist in charge of the reading promotion partners network, presented an overview of current Center for the Book activities, briefly mentioning the following projects: Building a Nation of Readers, the national reading promotion theme for 1997-2000, Letters About Literature, River of Words and the Viburnum Foundation Family Literacy Project. She also discussed two Library of Congress Bicentennial projects/themes that the Center for the Book will carry into the new century through its reading promotion and affiliated state center partnership networks: Favorite Poem, and "Beyond Words: Celebrating America's Libraries," which will be cosponsored with the American Library Association. She stressedthat these projects offer many opportunities for continuing and future partnerships.
The meeting featured brief presentations from every organization present, plus several special presentations introduced by moderator John Cole. Holly O'Donnell of the U.S. Department of Education started with a description of the America Reads Challenge. This project, an effort to increase the reading proficiency among America's youth, aims "to have all children reading well and independently by the end of the third grade." The Center for the Book assisted in organizing America Reads in 1996 and has supported its expansion in subsequent years. The presentations continued through lunch, concluding with a statement from Vera Hunter of the Church and Synagogue Library Association.
Educator Louisa C. Moats, coauthor of Straight Talk About Reading: How Parents Can Make a Difference During the Early Years (1999), made a special presentation about "tips for reading tutors." Drawing on current research about reading instruction, she emphasized the importance of printed matter to acquiring vocabulary. Ms. Moats also is the author of Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science (1999), a booklet prepared for the American Federation of Teachers, a Center for the Book partner.
Mary Haggerty of the Boston television station WGBH gave a special video presentation about "Between the Lions," the new PBS daily program that helps kids learn to read. Set in a library and aimed at children between the ages of 4 and 7 and their families, the series combines innovative puppetry, animation, live action and music into an entertaining learning adventure. It is co-produced by WGBH Boston and Sirius Thinking Ltd., and funded in part by a grant from the Education Department through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Since 1996 the Center for the Book and several of its reading promotion partners have been advising the developers of "Between the Lions," particularly about how the series can be introduced to families, literacy professionals, educators and librarians. Mary Haggerty announced that the center and the other 14 "founding partners" would be included in forthcoming national advertising for the series in national newsmagazines and in The New York Times.
Virginia Mathews, the center's consultant for the Viburnum Foundation/Center for the Book Family Literacy project, concluded the day with a plea for including libraries in reading promotion and literacy projects. She also called for "full-flowered literacy," by which she meant exposing children as early as possible not only to books but also to the idea that books are part of every aspect of life.
Center for the Book Reading Promotion Partners at the March 17 Annual Meeting
- Academy of American Poets
- America Reads, U.S. Department of Education
- American Foundation for the Blind
- American Library Association
- American Printing House for the Blind
- Armed Services YMCA
- "Between the Lions," WGBH
- Book Adventure Foundation
- Book It!, Pizza Hut
- Books for Kids Foundation
- Church and Synagogue Library Association
- Corporation for Public Broadcasting
- District Lines Poetry Project
- Everybody Wins! DC
- First Book
- Friends of Libraries USA
- General Federation of Women's Clubs
- International Board of Books for Young People
- International Reading Association
- International Rivers Network
- Kidsnet
- Lindy Boggs National Center for Community Literacy
- Literacy Volunteers of America Inc.
- Lutheran Church Library Association
- National Center for Learning Disabilities
- National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance
- National Council on the Aging Inc.
- National Endowment for the Arts
- National Federation of Press Women
- National Newspaper Association Foundation
- New Jersey Connection
- PBS Literacy Link
- Read Across America, National Education Association
- Reading Is Fundamental Inc.
- U.S. Department of Education
- U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
- U.S. National Institute for Literacy
- Vermont Center for the Book
- White House Conference on Libraries and Information Science Taskforce
- Women's National Book Association