The New York Library Initiative

Libraries fueling literacy, learning, innovation and growth

Growing Readers @ the Library: Raising Academic Outcomes

The New York Library Initiative would help implement the Education Department’s P-16 plan and close the achievement gap by making literacy and school readiness programs and materials accessible to all New York students. The New York Library Initiative would:

Benefits

o Promote school readiness by supporting cooperative early literacy programs (birth to age 5) for all youngsters.

o Enable future academic success and increase literacy of school-age children and parents by expanding proven summer reading programs in libraries.

o Improve academic outcomes for New Yorkers with disabilities by providing more support for library materials and services for the blind and physically disabled.

o Saturday hours at the New York State Library and New York State Archives will give New Yorkers greater access to those collections.

Needs

o Research shows that early language and literacy development begin in the first three years of life and are closely linked to a child’s earliest experiences with books and              stories.

o Library summer reading programs help students from less advantaged environments catch up to their more advantaged peers in literacy and reading skills.

o The Statewide Summer Reading Program is supported entirely by temporary and limited federal Library Services and Technology Act funds. It receives no ongoing state support.

o Children who are behind when they start school continue to fall behind children who have had books and reading since birth.

o Many working New Yorkers and students cannot use the New York State Library and its outstanding and unique research collections during the current Monday – Friday, 9             a.m. to 5 p.m. public hours.

Resources Requested $7.55 Million Annually

                 For Information contact: Janet M. Welch, New York State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner for Libraries
                 Phone: (518) 474-5930 Fax: (518) 486-6880 Email jwelch2@mail.nysed.gov Web site: www.nysl.nysed.gov/fundingproposals/

                 The New York State Library is part of the Office of Cultural Education and a program of the State Education Department

                                                                                                                                                                                                      11/07