Communicating about successes and challenges is an important element in collaborative efforts. To increase communication and disseminate information, librarians say they need time, financial support, more opportunities for personal contact (especially at the provincial and national levels), more effective use of email and list serves, and secondments to different libraries so people can share their knowledge, expertise and ideas.

iii. A Shared Vision for Adult Literacy: Questions and Next Steps

Can libraries develop a shared vision of adult literacy to meet these challenges and to assist them in collaborating with each other and with external organizations? To begin the discussion, librarians from the 1995 Summit were asked what questions libraries and library associations need to consider. They pose these questions:

• What can libraries provide that is unique for adult literacy?
• Where do stories and cultures fit into a shared vision of adult literacy?
• To what extent are libraries willing to address barriers that prevent people from using their services?
• How can libraries get financial and other types of support for adult literacy?
• How can libraries work with the highly competent literacy community locally, provincially and nationally?
• What role can libraries play in advancing government policy on adult literacy?

Next Steps

To move further along in developing a shared vision, librarians suggest taking steps in advocacy, staffing, infrastructure and planning. Libraries can advocate by mounting adult literacy campaigns, promoting libraries as education partners and not just a resource, and buying online data bases as contributions to their partners in adult literacy work.

In the area of staffing, librarians suggest putting knowledgeable and flexible staff into adult literacy initiatives, training staff to recognize signs indicating literacy difficulties in adults, building personal relationships with adult literacy learners, and addressing fears of adult literacy learners at personal and institutional levels.

Infrastructure for adult literacy can be improved by hiring full-time literacy coordinators for libraries or provincial library initiatives and looking at the needs of whole neighbourhoods to develop strategic plans. How do those needs impact staff training, reading initiatives, special events and projects? Suggestions for planning focus on strategizing by organizing face-to-face meetings with provincial stakeholders, doing pilot projects with provincial library associations and provincial literacy associations to build capacity, seeking permanent funding, and holding annual summits of adult literacy.