Population Served:
458,138 Project Contact: Dawn R. Gardner Project Title: Realize your American Dream @your library Project Descripiton: The Pima County Public Library has built partnerships with other community organizations that share our goal of a literate population. By meeting the demand of motivated learners for convenient, targeted English Language and technology classes through these connections, the Library supports expanding the employment prospects and improving the lives of Pima County residents. American Dream funds and resources helped us to further develop class models and the marketing of centrally-coordinated English class services, as well as enhanced the Library’s collaboration among organizations with agencies who serve adult learners. |
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Notable accomplishment, promising practices, or human interest stories: Glowing reports come in constantly from the Literacy Volunteers of Tucson (LVT), commenting on welcoming and supportive library staff members. Through the American Dream grant, PCPL has developed solid connections and feedback loops at host libraries. Successful summer English Language Classes at seven libraries enjoyed record attendance. Total attendance at all branches for the Summer 2008 Session (June – early August) was 1675, serving 202 students. Six of these branches continued with English Language Classes for the Fall 2008 Session, and again classes filled up quickly. September attendance alone at all six branches was 1056, with 241 students enrolled. A system-wide effort is building the Library’s capacity to help LVT’s efforts to engage volunteers. Libraries, even those without English Language Classes, hosted summertime volunteer matching sessions, posted information about LVT Volunteer Orientations and opportunities, and did programming highlighting LVT’s efforts. We are using what we learned through the American Dream project to create a marketing plan for cross-agency adult education classes at the library. Finally, we have let our counterparts in the area of adult education know of America’s Literacy Directory and have asked them to raise the awareness of their profile and encourage resource sharing.
Key lessons learned: Inter-agency projects like Realize your American Dream @ your library showcase the resources the library has to offer. As a result English Language Class program designers at PCPL are learning that they need to be prepared to act on opportunities of mutual benefit with their counterparts in adult education, while encouraging adaptation based on perceived costs and benefits. Specifically, PCPL had to purchase equipment and adapt the library meeting rooms to maintain class attendance the Library wanted to see. PCPL also learned most every staff person at the library needed to just as aware of the nature of the project and the reasons behind it as the program designers and key workers. PCPL needed to encourage awareness and invite input from all sides: from decision maker to publicist, to local program monitor. Once solid feedback loops were established, the project coordination could continue, even as the names and faces change. Hopefully for the future these feedback loops will ensure the program gets marketed in the right places and that tracking mechanisms are in place, so the library can ascertain how the project is meeting stated goals.
Advice for other libraries serving adult English language learners:
- Confirm roles, responsibilities, goals, and expectations in writing for all contributors.
- Build in standard tracking and evaluation processes to track your progress.
- Make sure your supervisors and associates are aware of the nature of the collaboration and the reasons behind it. Invite their input and maintain feedback loops.
- Take advantage of all the resources at your disposal, especially those supplied by the American Dream Starts @ Your Library grant.