The committee received round table status by a vote of the NCLA Executive Board at its meeting on July 18, 2003. 108 signatures collected by the committee from among NCLA members were submitted in support of the effort to achieve round table status.

Achieving round table status was important to the committee for three reasons: 1.) the Literacy Committee had become more active in the past two biennia, planning more conference programs and workshops than ever before, at a level more like that of a section or round table than a committee; 2.) we received a donation from the Reader’s Digest Fund to support our new NCLA Literacy Award, but as a committee did not have adequate status with NCLA for maintenance of a budget; 3.) we saw the move to round table status as a means to make literacy awareness, a goal for NCLA overall, a goal in which more NCLA members could participate directly, through round table membership growth and the resultant wider communication within NCLA of information about literacy through the round table’s membership.

Officers of the committee for this biennium were: Mark Pumphrey, Polk County Public Library, Chairperson of the Literacy Committee and Interim Chairperson after July 18, 2003 of the Literacy Round Table. Officers for the new biennium are:
Gale Greenlee, Greensboro Public Library, Chairperson; Betty Meehan-Black, UNC-Chapel Hill Library,Vice-Chairperson; Mark Pumphrey, Polk County Public Library, Past Chairperson; Trish Bean, H. Leslie Perry Memorial Library, Secretary/Treasurer; and Board Members Anne Marie Elkins (State Library of North Carolina), Steve Sumerford, (Greensboro Public Library), Mary Dunn Siedow, and Ralph Kaplan (NC LIVE, North Carolina State University).

The Round Table, in cooperation with the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund, co-sponsored the first NCLA Literacy Award, funded through a generous grant from the Readers Digest Fund. A subcommittee drafted criteria for the award and an announcement of the award opportunity was sent to the NCLA listserv and other email lists. The subcommittee reviewed award nominations, and made a recommendation to the Round Table. The winner of the first NCLA Literacy Award, announced at the Literacy Luncheon at the biennial conference, was Steve Sumerford of the Greensboro Public Library.

The biennium included a focus on English as a Second Language. A highly successful workshop was held on October 4, 2002 at the Glenwood Branch of the Greensboro Public Library. Attended by 31 members of the NC Library Association and the NC Literacy Association, the workshop provided an opportunity for members of the two association to communicate shared goals for the provision of English as a Second Language and also support for Hispanic services at libraries. The workshop was evaluated as excellent unanimously by workshop participants. The workshop was supported by an NCLA Special Projects Grants approved by the NCLA Finance Committee, who provided invaluable support, as did Caroline Walters, Administrative Assistant at the NCLA Office; NCLA website coordinator Bao-Chu Chang; and NCLA Treasurer Diane Kester.

In fact, Ms. Walters, Ms. Chang, and Ms. Kester provided invaluable, much appreciated support in numerous ways throughout the biennium, including assistance with website information maintenance, postings to the NCLA website, production of brochures, mailings, etc. The Literacy Round Table wishes to thank them again for their great support of our efforts during the biennium.

The NCLA Finance Committee once again funded a Special Projects Grant to support one of our 2003 biennial conference programs, the Literacy Luncheon featuring Dr. Dale Lipschultz, Director of the American Library Association’s Office of Literacy and Outreach Services. The luncheon program, held on Thursday, September 25, 2003, during the biennial conference, again followed the biennium focus on English as a Second Language programs in libraries, and Dr. Lipschultz’s presentation on this topic was well-received by those NCLA members in attendance. Again, appreciation is given to the NCLA Finance Committee for support of this program. The program was followed by the Literacy Round Table’s first general membership meeting, at which the officers for the new biennium were approved by the membership and the bylaws for the round table were adopted.

Other 2003 biennial conference programs included a program on LINCS, an Internet project linking users to categorized literacy resources; a focus group meeting with NCLA members led by Emily Castleberry Literacy Coordinator of the UNC Center for Public Broadcasting focusing on family and preschool literacy; and a panel discussion featuring Gale Greenlee, Trish Bean and Mary Siedow, in which Ms. Greenlee described ESL programs at the Glenwood Branch of the Greensboro Public Library; and the panel presented the results of an North Carolina library ESL survey which was prepared and distributed electronically earlier in the year.

As a precursor to the focus group meeting co-sponsored with UNC-TV at the biennial conference, Chairperson Mark Pumphrey represented NCLA on a panel of literacy agency representatives taped on September 17 and aired on September 20, 2003 for UNC-TV’s Education Forum series.

The Round Table board and members may look back on the 2001-2003 biennium with pride, as a time in which more was accomplished than could possibly have been envisioned at the beginning of the biennium. The next biennium holds every prospect of being another period of growth in membership, energy, collaboration, information sharing, and development of literacy awareness and services in libraries in North Carolina and among the NCLA membership.

Respectfully Submitted,
Mark Pumphrey, Chair, 2001-2003 Biennium
NCLA Literacy Committee
and
Interim Chair, NCLA Literacy Round Table