Whitney Malkin sees similarities between the homeless, working poor, and college students…. Here are excerpts from her article:
“Right now, with things the way they are, a lot of students just can’t afford to eat,” said Terry Capleton, who started a Facebook group called “I Ain’t Afraid to be on Food Stamps” when he was a student at Benedict College in South Carolina….
Deirdre Wilson, a junior at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C., applied for food stamps in November because her paycheck from a work-study job didn’t stretch far enough to cover her expanding grocery bill.
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The HHPTF, in partnership with the OLOS Subcommittee on Library Services to Poor and Homeless People, reported the findings from the ALA Task Force Member Survey on Policy 61.
Here is the full report:
Summary of the ALA Task Force Survey on ALA Policy 61 Library Services for the Poor.pdf
Attendees were asked for their input as well. Your comments and suggestions are welcome and will be compiled in a final report during the 2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting. Please send us your comments and suggestions.
If you are a library actively serving the poor please share your information and resources on the Library Success Wiki page.
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Join us on Saturday, June 28, 1:30-3:30 pm, at the ALA Anaheim 2008 Annual Conference in the Disneyland Hotel Dreams D room for our Building Communities Through Libraries free panel discussion.
Find out how special and academic librarians are providing information outreach services that address community needs such as healthcare, literacy and education. Special and academic librarians will talk about successful partnerships that have led to lessening the knowledge gap and reducing information impoverishment.
Speakers: John Buschman, Associate University Librarian, Georgetown University Library; Dorothy Warner, Professor-Librarian, Rider University; Nancy McKeehan, Assistant Director of Libraries for Systems, Medical University of South Carolina
Library; Eileen Abels, Master’s Program Director and Associate Professor, College of Information Science & Technology at Drexel University; Denise E. Agosto, Associate Professor, College of Information Science & Technology at Drexel University
Chair: Lisa Gieskes, Coordinator, HHPTF
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The June 30, 2008, issue of The Nation features a variety of articles covering economic insecurity, wealth distribution, and intractable plutocracy in the United States.
In their introductory essay, “The Rich and the Rest of Us,” John Cavanagh and Chuck Collins observe,
Too many Americans see the enormous concentration of our nation’s wealth as a symptom of a sick society, not a cause. Indeed, most of our politicians and pundits refuse to treat it as any sort of problem at all. They may sometimes bewail particularly unseemly CEO paychecks. They may twitter occasionally about the latest bilious billionaire extravagance. But that’s it.
The Senate couldn’t even manage to eliminate a tax loophole for gazillionaire hedge-fund managers last year. And even progressive wish lists tend to call only for a return to pre-George Bush tax rates, a step that would undo a mere one-sixth of the rise in income inequality we have experienced since the late 1970s, according to the Brookings Institution.
Cavanagh and Collins also note,
In April 2007 … a national coalition of organizations under the umbrella of Half in Ten (www.halfinten.org) put forward a broad set of proposals to cut poverty in half over the next decade. But this effort will likely fall short as long as concentrated wealth defines our nation’s political priorities. And until we seriously tax the holders of concentrated wealth, we will lack the funding resources that any bold poverty-fighting initiative demands.
Be sure to review the links and “new and recent” books list compiled in “Extreme Inequality: A Nation Guide.”
[Special thanks to Sandy Berman for the heads-up!]
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Despite the best efforts of the Chicago Housing Authority to prevent the public from learning about a Section 8 housing lottery this spring, librarians at Skokie Public Library made sure that thousands of people were informed.
In early April we heard about large groups of individuals queueing up outside the Chicago Public Library main library and branches before they opened. They had heard a rumor that the lottery for Section 8 (affordable) housing was starting soon and that they could find information at their local library. When the librarians tried to find out the source of the information, they ran into a brick wall. The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) was not giving out any information …
One enterprising librarian from the Evanston Public Library got hold of the information and sent it out to all in her network. It arrived at our library without any mention of confidentiality … we decided to make the information public on our community website, SkokieNet.org. It went live on April 11th . And we started to get a steady flow of calls, emails, and visits to the website.
Here is the full story. Way to go, SPL!
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