If you are in New Orleans for ALA, be sure to check out the following program (forwarded by Isabel Espinal):
“Race, Poverty, and Aging Baby Boomers”
Sunday
June 25, 2006
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Morial Convention Center (MCC) Room 393
Sponsored by:
AFL-CIO-ALA Library Service to Labor Groups, RUSA
The tragic aftermath of hurricane Katrina has laid bare the race and class disparities in this country like no other event in recent history. Twenty-eight percent of the residents of New Orleans lived below the poverty line prior to Katrina and 84% of them were African-American. Katrina demonstrated that along with race and class, age matters in America.
While many aging Baby Boomers will be healthier and wealthier than their parents’ generation, the number of older adults in poverty and at risk will increase significantly so that by 2008 there will be 6.7 million persons aged 55 or over below poverty, a 22% increase from 2000. This panel will present findings from recent research, explore implications for librarians, and provide an update on efforts to clean up and rebuild New Orleans.
Speakers:
Andrew Sum, PhD, director, Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University; Monique Harden, Esq., co-director, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights
* * *
The House of Representatives recently passed a pay raise for itself but just killed a bill to increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour.
CNN’s Lou Dobbs today offers some choice criticism of these actions:
Raising the minimum wage … would positively affect the lives of more than 8 million workers, including an estimated 760,000 single mothers and 1.8 million parents with children under 18 … Don’t you think these families just might need that cost-of-living increase a bit more than our elected officials who are paid nearly $170,000 a year?
With no Congressional action on raising the minimum wage since 1997, inflation has eroded wages. The minimum wage in the 21st century is $2 lower in real dollars than it was four decades ago and now stands at its lowest level since 1955, according to the Economic Policy Institute and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Also, since the last time Congress increased the minimum wage for our lowest-paid workers, buying power has fallen by 25 percent. Yet over that time our elected representatives have given themselves eight pay raises totaling more than 23 percent.
For more information about living wages, check out the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign: www.letjusticeroll.org.
The minimum wage is where society draws the line: This low and no lower. Our bottom line is this: A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.
The Campaign conducts an ongoing educational program to inform people of the severity of conditions facing low-wage working people and what must be done to bring about constructive change. It is organizing actively at the federal level and in selected states to raise the minimum wage.
To contact your Representative, visit www.house.gov/writerep.
* * *
According to the Associated Press, the Porter County (Indiana) Public Library System has revised its access policies with respect to homeless people.
Changes were enacted May 10th in response to reported material losses worth $4,000, attributed to temporary shelter residents. Assistant director James Cline considers the new policies “fiscally responsible to the taxpayers.”
Homeless children will not be allowed to check out material from [the] northwestern Indiana library system, which also has limited adults living in shelters to taking out three books at a time …
The policy allows adults living in shelters to receive a renewable library card on a three-month basis. Children 17 and under who live in the shelters will not be eligible for a library card …
Rachel Jamieson, 26, and her three children have been living at Spring Valley [Shelter] the last week and a half as they seek permanent housing. She called the policy unfair.
“I don’t think we should be responsible for other people’s mistakes. It doesn’t mean everybody is like that,” she said.
While the educational rights of homeless children are well established, public libraries are not apparently governed by this legal framework (i.e. the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act).
The HHPTF encourages Porter County officials to review the work of groups like the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth (NAEHCY) and study their materials.
A good place to start? “Homeless Education: An Introduction to the Issues” (PDF).
UPDATE: According to American Libraries, on June 21 the Porter County Library board voted to rescind its problematic access policy.
“Yes, we did jump and made conclusions,” board President Scott Falk said, according to the June 22 Gary Post-Tribune ... Assistant Director James Cline, in turn, apologized to shelter representatives at the meeting for not consulting with them first.
* * *
After an impressive six-year run, Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s Community Building column in Reference and User Services Quarterly will be coming to an end.
The column—which Kathleen wrote, co-wrote, and edited—has routinely featured articles on the needs of low-income people and other socially excluded groups. With editorial changes at RUSQ, the journal is purportedly moving in new directions.
The HHPTF applauds Kathleen’s work and wishes her continued success in her professional pursuits. Among other recent projects, she authored Introduction to Public Librarianship and teaches a University of South Florida course titled “Librarians and Human Rights.”
RUSQ Community Building columns to date:
Volume 40, Number 1
“Librarians and Comprehensive Community Initiatives”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook
Volume 40, Number 2
“Service Integration and Libraries: Will 2-1-1 be the Catalyst for Renewal?”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook
Volume 40, Number 3
“Community Building and Latino Families”
Marcela Villagrán, Guest Columnist
Volume 40, Number 4
“Community Indicators, Genuine Progress, and the Gold Billion”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Kristen Brand, Guest Columnist
Volume 41, Number 1
“Collaboration Generates Synergy: Saint Paul Public Library, the College of St. Catherine, and the ‘Family Place’ Program”
Carol P. Johnson, Ginny Brodeen, Helen Humeston,
and Rebecca McGee, Guest Columnists
Volume 41, Number 2
“Authentic Discourse as a Means of Connection Between Public Library Services Responses and Community Building Initiatives”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook
Volume 41, Number 3
“Service to Day Laborers: A Job Libraries Have Left Undone”
Bruce Jensen, Guest Columnist
Volume 41, Number 4
“Cultural Heritage Institutions and Community Building”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook and Marla A. Jones, Guest Columnist
Volume 42, Number 1
“The African-American Research Library and Cultural Center
of the Broward County Library”
Henrietta M. Smith, Guest Columnist
Volume 42, Number 2
“Alaska Resources Library and Information Services: Building Community in the Forty-Ninth State”
Juli Braund-Allen and Daria O. Carle, Guest Columnists
Volume 42, Number 3
“Sustainable Communities and the Roles Libraries and Librarians Play”
Frederick W. Stoss, Guest Columnist
Volume 42, Number 4
“Using a Homeless Shelter as a Library Education Learning Laboratory: Incorporating Service-Learning in a Graduate-Level Information Sources and Services in the Social Sciences Course”
Lorna Peterson, Guest Columnist
Volume 43, Number 1
“Suppressing the Commons: Misconstrued Patriotism vs. a Psychology of Liberation”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook
Volume 43, Number 2
“Transformations of Librarianship in Support of Learning Communities”
Eino Sierppe, Guest Columnist
Volume 43, Number 3
“A Passion for Connection: Community Colleges Fulfill the Promise
of Cultural Institutions”
Carmine J. Bell, Guest Columnist
Volume 43, Number 4
“Community, Identity, and Literature”
Elaine Yontz, Guest Columnist
Volume 44, Number 1
“Public Libraries and People in Jail”
Kathleen de la Peña McCook
Volume 44, Number 2
“A Digital Library to Serve a Region: The Bioregion and First Nations Collections of the Southern Oregon Digital Archives”
Mary Jane Cedar Face and Deborah Hollens, Guest Columnists
Volume 44, Number 3
“The Homeless and Information Needs and Services”
Julie Hersberger, Guest Columnist
Volume 44, Number 4
“Building Lead-Free Communities”
Frederick W. Stoss, Guest Columnist
Volume 45, Number 1
“Human Rights and Librarians”
Kathleen de la Pena McCook and Katherine J. Phenix, Guest Columnist
Volume 45, Number 2
“Poverty, Poor People, and Our Priorities”
John Gehner, Guest Columnist
* * *
The National Institute for Literacy is one of four partners that sponsor America’s Literacy Directory, a searchable database of literacy programs available nationwide.
[ALD] is a web site that allows users to find local literacy providers in all 50 states and the U.S. territories. The ALD includes literacy programs for adults, children, and families. You can also search … for volunteer opportunities in your neighborhood.
By entering an address or a ZIP code, you can find detailed information about area literacy programs and the services they offer. You can also generate a map and driving directions for all programs listed … the ALD includes a directory of state and local hotlines and contacts.
* * *