The evolution of literacy programs in the context of library adult education

Abstract

IT IS NOT SURPRISING that adult literacy has emerged and reemerged cyclically as an element in public library philosophy and adult services. Democratization of our political society and evolution of our economic society from emphasis on skilled crafts to industrial mechanization to high technology have put a premium on the adult’s capacity to read. While public schoolsfrom the early nineteenth century were focused on the three basic literacy skills of “reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic, ” a significant proportion of our adult population arrived in mainstream American society either without English language skills or without capacity for the three Rs in any language. Waves of immigration from overseas throughout U.S.history and, increasingly in this century, from ill-schooled rural and urban areas of the United States have evoked response from urban public libraries. What is therationale for the public library’s involvement in literacy programs? Basically, the public library has a responsibility to maintain the climate for use of the library’s resources; a literate society is essential to its continued use. As Ranganathan has made clear, libraries have a responsibility to their resources to see that they are used by people who need them. Roots of Public Libraries in the Concern for Literacy In the much embattled field of the history of public libraries in the last decade or two, no one has sought toclaim a motivation of the young

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