For today’s comps prep, I intended to read chapters three and four of Making Cities Stronger: Public Library Contributions to Local Economic Development. However, I only made it through chapter three before exhaustion set in and my pillow began calling.
A few highlights of what I learned from chapter three, “Strategies for building workforce participation”:
- Many public libraries have created one-stop career resource centers so that members of the community will be better able to achieve “economic self-sufficiency” – a term used to describe an individual’s ability to financially support his/her family. These resource centers not only provide access to employment resources, they also assist with the preparation of college applications and resumes, and provide assistance with interview preparation and job searches.
- Libraries that have a sufficiently funded outreach program are taking their one-stop career service centers to “areas of high unemployment and need” in their communities.
- Hartford, Connecticut, a city with “over one hundred ethnic cultures” where “32 languages are spoken in the public schools,” embraces community diversity by providing classes “to help people achieve their goals for secure immigration, citizenship and literacy.” (If only Oklahoma’s legislators were so forward-thinking . . . . )
Linda Summers
