Barbara Bush and former Sen. Paul Simon (D.-Ill.) joined 23 literacy experts March 26–27 at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where they unveiled an 18-point action plan to combat illiteracy in the United States. The plan calls for the library director in the largest community in every county in the nation to coordinate a communitywide effort to determine how to analyze the problem and solve it.
The forum was initiated by Simon, founder and director of SIU's Public Policy Institute. He told American Libraries that libraries and the American Library Association "are central and absolutely essential to meeting this great challenge." ALA should establish standards for a continuum of library involvement and service provision, he said.
The plan also asks employers, schools, and prison systems to play key roles. The directors of the National Center for Family Literacy, the National Institute for Literacy, and the National Coalition for Literacy called for more cooperation between organizations in the field.
Posted April 5, 1999.