Literally Literacy multidistrict workshop notes

If you couldn’t make it to the Literally Literacy Workshop hosted by Capital Area, Chambersburg, and York/Adams District Library Centers, check out the notes below for a very brief summary of some of the important ideas and resources that were shared at the workshop.

Morning Session: Basic Literacy
What is Literacy? The ability to use printed and written information in society to achieve one’s goals and develop one’s potential.

Check your forms and information brochures. Use increased spacing, bigger clear fonts, and more graphics and symbols to help those with lower literacy skills navigate your library.

Medicare forms are written at grade level 14. Imagine how hard it would be for someone with low literacy skills to get the services they need.

Many people with low literacy skills don’t know or won’t admit they have a problem, but low literacy makes doing everything much more difficult.

The ratio of budget funds spent on school age students vs. adult learners is 10-1. Literacy programs are not well funded and may be asked to serve fewer people in the future because of funding limitations.

Try your hand at this quiz: A quiz to help you learn facts about literacy

Some facts:
-Of the 200,000,000 adults in America, 43,000,000 have not finished high school. 18% of adults in PA have not finished high school.
-Illiteracy costs U.S. Businesses $225 billion each year in lost productivity.
-50% of Americans are unable to read a book at the 8th grade level.
-44% of adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to fill out an application, read a food label, or read a story to a child.

Your local literacy council receives some of their funding through the PA Department of Education’s Bureau of Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE).
Literacy agencies in PA have seen a 25% cut in funding over 2 years.
Literacy programs attempt to justify the outcomes of their work by meeting EFL (Educational Functional Level) goals.

Check out www.paacesite.org for the PA Association for Adult Continuing Education.

Adult learners can be “scared” of schools and libraries because they represent places they have not had success before. It’s not always the most comfortable environment to start in.

Learn about Tutors of Literacy: http://www.tlcliteracy.org/
This agency gives training to volunteer tutors.

Check out the resources from proliteracy.org
Great materials to download and much more information about Literacy from The National Institute for Literacy: http://www.nifl.gov/

Need to find your local literacy council? Make a contact and talk about partnership opportunities today:
local area Literacy Council Contact Sheet
Adams County: literacydirectory.org
Perry County: http://www.perryliteracy.com/
York County Literacy Council: http://www.yorkliteracy.org/

Afternoon Session: WilsonWeb
Much of what was learned can be easily shared by using the training videos available here: http://hwwilson.com/power/

What follows are some local highlights and tips for actions you can take:
-Contact your local Product Manager for details on how to customize your library’s WilsonWeb account.
-Librarians can get access to statistics, link Wilson holdings to your OPAC to show whether or not your library owns the item. Try out the ADM module.
-Encourage all of your staff and board members to spend some time using the resource. Try some searches and see the results you get.
-Sign up for an account in MyWilsonWeb. All users can do this to save searches, send articles, and take advantage of services that will send new content that matches your searches. (Perhaps your library could share an account for your reference librarians to track how Wilson has been useful with patrons?)