Registration now open for Step Up to the Plate @ your library®
Contact: Megan Humphrey
Campaign Coordinator
mhumphrey@ala.org
For Immediate Release
February 28, 2006
Registration now open for Step Up to the Plate @ your library®; new incentives available to libraries
Just a little over one month until the baseball season’s opening day, and registration is now open for the American Library Association’s (ALA) 21st century literacy program that teams up libraries and baseball.
The "Step up to the Plate @ your library" program will officially launch Friday, April 28, at the St. Louis Public Library and Busch Stadium. Librarians can visit the
program Web site now to register for free promotional tools to help prepare for the new program. Tools include program logos in both English and Spanish and a toolkit that includes sample press materials and programming ideas.
The first 100 libraries to register will receive a Jackie Robinson History Lives poster from ALA Graphics. Librarians can also win incentives for participation in the program. The library that brings in the most entries will receive a $100 bookstore gift certificate, a copy of Lawrence Hogan's Shades of Glory: The Negro Leagues and the Story of African-American Baseball (published by National Geographic Society) and three copies of Satch and Me by Dan Gutman (published by HarperCollins). The next three libraries will receive a $50 ALA Graphics gift certificate and these books.
"Step up to the Plate" is a partnership between ALA and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, The Campaign for America’s Libraries’ newest Founding Partner. The initiative continues the program originally developed with Major League Baseball, which successfully concluded in 2005.
The library staff at the Hall of Fame has created all new baseball trivia questions for the program that will be available when the program launches. Baseball fans and library users of all ages answer the trivia questions in the "Playbook" that corresponds to their age group using the resources in the library to look up the answers. Questions address five topic areas: women in baseball; African-Americans in baseball; Hispanics in baseball; Major League Baseball; and ball parks.
Every player who answers four questions correctly will be entered into a drawing to win the grand-prize, a trip for two to Cooperstown to attend the Museum’s World Series Gala event on Saturday, October 21, as well as a behind-the-scenes tour.
Twenty first-place prize packages also will be awarded (five in each of the four age groups). They will include a commemorative hardbound copy of the Hall of Fame Yearbook; Hall of Fame t-shirt; commemorative set of 20 Hall of Fame baseball cards; DVD copy of the classic baseball movie, "The Sandlot;" miniature souvenir Akadema Pro baseball glove; and a Jackie Robinson History Lives poster from ALA Graphics.
