San Diego Co Library - Now Read This: Recession Halts Local Libraries' Literacy Programs

Now Read This: Recession Halts Local Libraries' Literacy Programs: Both the Casa de Oro and Spring Valley branches have had key literacy programs cut due to the economic downturn.
Mount Helix Patch: December 2, 2010 by Martin Jones Westlin

In the old days, San Diego County's anchor literacy facility was loopy with community outreach and the people who performed it. Everyone got involved, from churches, to book fairs, to schools, to entire neighborhoods. With a rate of about one in five county residents who lacked basic reading and riding skills, the county library's El Cajon branch personnel sought to help in its literacy campaign. The war was on, and the county had created a local program to help wage it.

Problem is, the old days aren't so old.

Only last year, the San Diego Council on Literacy applied for its annual grant to administer its Literacy*AmeriCorps coalition for 2010-11. But the recession has come to call, in the form of denial of the monies—leaving the county's AmeriCorps connection in disarray, costing the Spring Valley library branch a key class, slashing outreach at the Casa de Oro branch and meeting with the literacy council's dismay. If the grant had been given, the funding would have kicked in last summer, providing, among other things, modest stipends for those who volunteered for service.

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The county created Libraries Empower All to Read Now (LEARN), its latest literacy effort, in 2005, staffing it with full- and part-time personnel from AmeriCorps and its own system, and housing it at the El Cajon branch. Seven AmeriCorps volunteers assessed and tutored scores of learners in LEARN's five years, assisting with clerical and outreach duties and attending literacy seminars from San Diego to Los Angeles. The members' terms of service typically last a year; members cannot serve more than twice.

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For Kevin Vigil, a county library associate who helped spearhead AmeriCorps' local literacy work, the funding denial has meant a fight for survival.

"I would say the word would be 'inconvenient,' " Vigil said. "It's been quite an adjustment. Before, we always had someone in the office, regardless of who went where. Now, we don't have anyone answering the phones or e-mail. It's just me, and I do what I can."

Vigil handles tutoring requests and outreach for the southern half of the county. LEARN also maintains a facility at the county library in Vista. The library system has 33 facilities and circulates 10 million books and other items annually.

In Spring Valley, the cut has meant the cancellation of a citizenship class and the cessation of AmeriCorps' in-house tutoring program, leaving five potential learners to wonder what will happen next (the average wait time for tutor service from LEARN is about two months). Currently, no potential learners await tutor service at the Casa de Oro branch—but without AmeriCorps' aid, they're also no longer targets for outreach and may be unaware that LEARN exists. READ MORE !