Food Deserts. No. 584.

Food deserts – a term used for communities that have limited access to affordable and nutritious food - are real places and they are affecting the health of millions of Americans. Found in both rural areas and urban clusters, food deserts are defined by their distances from large grocery stores and other supermarkets selling a variety of fresh produce and healthy food options. Deserts primarily form around low-income populations where families live on tight budgets and lack a reliable means of transportation.

2009 USDA Report:
Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food—Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences: Report to Congress

--The purpose of the Institute for Food and Development Policy - Food First - is to eliminate the injustices that cause hunger.

Incarceration Generation. No. 583.

Parental imprisonment has emerged as a novel, and distinctly American, childhood risk that is concentrated among black children and children of low-education parents,” said Christopher Wildeman, a sociologist at the University of Michigan who is studying what some now call the “incarceration generation.”
[Parental Imprisonment, the Prison Boom, and the Concentration of Childhood Disadvantage." Demography - Volume 46, Number 2, May 2009, pp. 265-280].


Libraries can provide help:

Andersen, L. Update on Prison Projects. Progressive Librarian no. 25 (Summer 2005) p. 96-9.

Arnold, R., et. al., From a Distance. School Library Journal v. 52 no. 9 (September 2006) p. 32.

Campbell, D. K. The Context of the Information Behavior of Prison Inmates. Progressive Librarian no. 26 (Winter 2005/2006) p. 18-32.

Clark, Sheila and Erica MacCreaigh. Library Services to the Incarcerated Applying the Public Library Model in Correctional Facility Libraries

McCook, K. d. l. P. Public Libraries and People in Jail. Reference & User Services Quarterly v. 44 no. 1 (Fall 2004) p. 26-30.

Walden, D. Breaking the Cycle: Prison Reading Program Encourages Literacy. Colorado Libraries v. 30 no. 4 (Winter 2004) p. 20-2.

Equity and Social Justice- Assessment Tool Model. No. 582.

In support of the King County Equity and Social Justice Initiative (http://www.kingcounty.gov/equity), DNRP recently carried out an equity assessment for its major lines of business. The assessment utilized Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map how selected services and facilities relate to basic demographic conditions.

This comparison helps identify and address the relative fairness in distribution of benefits and burdens across our service areas, with the goal of reducing racial or income-based inequity associated with facilities and programs.

Having this basic, screening-level understanding of how our service portfolio impacts residents of various demographic backgrounds provides a useful perspective for more detailed assessments, if needed. When considering capital improvements, outreach or planning decisions, these maps help assess the potential impacts of new actions as they relate to current service levels and spatial demographics.

[Thanks to a post from EcolIbrarian,
Jonathan Betz-Zall, at the Task Force on the Environment (TFOE)discussion list.]

The Task Force on the Environment (TFOE) was created in 1989 in the spirit of the 20th Anniversary of Earth Day (1990). TFOE is one of the issues-oriented task forces that comprise the Social Responsibilities Round Table (SRRT) of the American Library Association (ALA). TFOE includes librarians, publishers, vendors, and other interested parties from a wide variety of settings, from public libraries, school libraries, and college and university libraries, to government agencies, public interest groups, publishers, vendors and other information providers.

Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act 2009. No. 581

What is the DREAM Act?

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act is bipartisan legislation that addresses the situation faced by young people who were brought to the United States years ago as undocumented immigrant children, and who have since grown up here, stayed in school, and kept out of trouble.

■ Why is the DREAM Act needed?

Each year about 65,000 U.S.–raised students who would qualify for the DREAM Act’s benefits graduate from high school. These include honor roll students, star athletes, talented artists, homecoming queens, and aspiring teachers, doctors, and U.S. soldiers. They are young people who have lived in the U.S. for most of their lives and desire only to call this country their home. Even though they were brought to the U.S. years ago as children, they face unique barriers to higher education, areunable to work legally in the U.S., and often live in constant fear of detection by immigration authorities. Our immigration law currently has no mechanism to consider the special equities and circumstances of such students. The DREAM Act would eliminate this flaw. It is un-American to indefinitely and irremediably punish them for decisions made by adults many years ago. By enacting the DREAM Act, Congress would legally recognize what is de facto true: these young people belong here.

■ What is the DREAM Act’s Current Status?

Support for the DREAM Act has grown each year since it was first introduced in 2001 during the 107th Congress. In past years it has garnered 48 Senate cosponsors and more than 152 Republican and Democratic House cosponsors, more than one-third of the House. It has twice passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in bipartisan fashion, by a 16-3 vote in the 2003–2004 108th Congress, and again in 2006 by a voice vote without dissent as an amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill. In May 2006, the DREAM Act passed the full Senate as part of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (S. 2611). On Oct. 24, 2007, in a 52-44 vote in the Senate, the DREAM Act (S. 2205) fell just 8 votes shy — with four senators absent for the vote — of the 60 votes necessary to proceed with debate on the bill. The DREAM Act continues to attract bipartisan support and now, for the first time, also enjoys the strong backing of the House and Senate leadership, all of the relevant committee chairs, and President Obama.

Sen. Dick Durbin (IL) and Rep. Howard Berman (CA) reintroduced the bill on March 26, 2009 as S.729 and H.R. 1751.

Go here to help.

Community Tool Box. Survey. No. 580.

Greetings from the Community Tool Box!

We would very much appreciate your help improving the Community Tool Box by completing this quick survey. As the Tool Box moves towards greater interactivity, we are especially interested in your ideas. Your comments and feedback will help us expand this free content and develop new features to better suit your needs.

We would also value your contributions to expanding Tool Box content and languages, and would welcome the opportunity to partner.

This survey should only take 5-10 minutes of your time. Here's the link:

Many, many thanks, and best wishes to you in your community improvement work,

The Community Tool Box Team

Community Relations for Small and/or Rural Public Libraries. No. 579.

In January of this year, a team of library professionals participating in
the ALA Emerging Leaders project were asked by ALA and PLA to survey the directors, managers, and administrators of small and rural public libraries. The goal of the survey is to assess the skills and techniques used by small and rural libraries to build community relations, and to determine what activities and resources are used to build those relations or improve upon those
relations.

This post is a request for your assistance with the survey. It should take approximately 15 minutes to complete, and will remain anonymous, unless you select otherwise. The results of this survey will be presented to the Public Library Association and the American Library Association and will assist in the aggregation of current resources for small and rural librarians and the development of new resources.


You can access the survey at: Rural/Small Town Libraries & Community Connections.

The survey will remain open until May 29, 2009.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at: el_team_b@ala.org

Thank you for participating. Your input as the director or manager of a small or rural library is crucial in helping national organizations better serve you and your institutions.

Thank You-

Christine Ayar

Sarah Lawton

Hagar Shirman

Sarah Townsend
el_team_b@ala.org

Office of Public Engagement. No. 578.

ABOUT THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

The Office of Public Engagement is the open front door to the White House.

The Office of Public Engagement is the embodiment of the President’s goal of making government inclusive, transparent, accountable and responsible.

We create and coordinate opportunities for direct dialogue between the Obama Administration and the American public, while bringing new voices to the table and ensuring that everyone can participate and inform the work of the President.

The Office of Public Engagement helps open the two-way dialogue, ensuring that the issues impacting our nation’s proud and diverse communities have a receptive team dedicated to making their voices heard within the Administration, and even more importantly helping their concerns be translated into action by the appropriate bodies of the Federal Government.

As part of making the Government accessible to its citizens, the Office of Public Engagement acts as a point of coordination for public speaking engagement for the Administration and the various departments of the Executive Offices of the President. The Office of Public Engagement removes obstacles and barriers for engagement and works to improve public awareness and involvement in the work of the Administration.

Together, side by side with the citizens who have demanded a government they can be a part of, a government that works, The Office of Public Engagement will build the open and transparent government President Barack Obama has promised.