U.S. Poverty Rate Rises. A Librarian At Every Table. No. 298.

The nation’s official poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004. The percentage of the nation’s population without health insurance coverage remained stable, at 15.7 percent in 2004. The number of people with health insurance increased by 2.0 million to 245.3 million between 2003 and 2004, and the number without such coverage rose by 800,000 to 45.8 million.
Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004.

RED CROSS and Hurricane Katrina Victims. A Librarian at Every Table. No. 297.

Help Victims of Hurricane Katrina. Red Cross

The Shame of the Nation : The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America: A Librarian At Every Table. No. 296.

Jonathan Kozol has a new book,coming out in mid-September-- The Shame of the Nation : The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. Mr. Kozol was the speaker at the American Library Association's President's program in July 2000.
ALl his books are important. Death at an Early Age: The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of Negro Children in the Boston Public School. (1967) National Book Award.
* Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America (1988) Awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for 1989 and The Conscience in Media Award of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Christopher Award, 1988.
* Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools(1991).
* Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation (1995)
* Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope (2000).

Successful Solutions for Sustainable Development.A Librarian at Every Table. No. 295.

The Best Practices and Local Leadership Programme (BLP) is a global network of institutions dedicated to the identification and exchange of successful solutions for sustainable development.


The Best Practices searchable database contains over 2150 proven solutions from more than 140 countries to the common social, economic and environmental problems of an urbanizing world. It demonstrates the practical ways in which public, private and civil society sectors are working together to improve governance, eradicate poverty, provide access to shelter, land and basic services, protect the environment and support economic development.

The project collaborates with the UN Habitat --United Nations Human Settlements Program.

“Gathering at the Waters: Embracing Our Spirits, Telling Our Stories.” A Librarian at Every Table. No. 294.

Official Site is up.

The Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) is the first-ever national conference to be held and sponsored by the five caucus associations of color at the same time in the same place. The theme is“Gathering at the Waters: Embracing Our Spirits, Telling Our Stories.” The JCLC is scheduled for October 11–15, 2006 in Dallas, TX at the Adam's Mark Dallas Hotel.

The five caucus associations are affiliate members of the American Library Association (ALA) and their liaison to ALA is through its Office for Literacy and Outreach Services (OLOS). The five caucus associations have each held their own national conferences in the past. The 2006 joint national conference is co-sponsored by the American Indian Library Association (AILA); the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA); the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA); the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA), and REFORMA, the National Association to Provide Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking. Conference proceeds will be divided equally amongst the five groups for their scholarship endowments.

KnowledgePlex:The Affordable Housing and Community Development Resource: A Librarian at Every Table. No. 293.

Created by a distinguished team of founding partners and implemented by the Fannie Mae Foundation, KnowledgePlex® is designed to support the efforts of practitioners, grantors, policy makers, scholars, investors, and others involved or interested in the fields of affordable housing and community development.

Topics Include:

Affordable Housing Development & Finance

Economic Revitalization

Fair Housing

Homelessness

Homeownership & Mortgage Markets

Land Use & Housing Planning

Organizational Development

Personal Finance & Asset Creation

Public Housing

Social & Comprehensive Development

Collaboration, Capacity Building and Community Development: A Librarian at Every Table. No. 292.

The first issue of the International Journal of Education and Development has an editorial "Collaboration as a critical success factor in using ICT for capacity building and community development."
Stewart Marshall and Wal Taylor observe:

Despite the huge potential of ICT to assist communities to increase their overall well-being through community development, there are relatively few examples of sustained community networks built around ICT when compared to commercial applications, even in the developed countries where the technology has been increasingly available for up to 20 years.

Of related interest is the work of the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force.

Darfur: A Librarian at Every Table. No. 291.

The Save Darfur Coalition is an alliance of over 130 diverse faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organizations, assembled to raise public awareness and to mobilize efforts to help end the atrocities and reduce the suffering in Darfur and nearby refugee camps.

The Darfur Information Center is a gateway with educational and advocacy purposes. The main objectives of Darfur Information Center:
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Provide balanced views and news about the current events in Darfur.
- Provide general information about Darfur history, culture, geography, for Sudanese and non-Sudanese.
- Serve as an advocacy organization that promotes peaceful co-existences between various ethnic groups of Darfur.
- Expose the atrocities and human rights abuses committed by the Sudanese government, and various militia groups.
- Provide political solutions for the current political turmoil in Darfur within a unified Sudan.

Darfur: A Genocide We Can Stop