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G2S Project Code: 2023-PA-93955
State: Pennsylvania
Fiscal Year: 2023

Grantee
Pennsylvania Library Association

Project Director
Director Name: Christi Buker
Director Phone: (717) 766-5440
Director Email: christi@palibraries.org

General Information
Title: PA Forward
State Project Code: FC4100096535
Start Date: 10/01/2023
End Date: 06/30/2024
Abstract: Libraries are critical community infrastructure. They connect people to the information they need to be successful in a 21st Century Society. If provided with the best possible resources in Basic, Information, Civic and Social, Health and Financial literacies, libraries can help their individual users to enhance their own literacy skills, leading to a better quality of life and ability to contribute fully to their communities and the Commonwealth. PA Forward® supports these efforts by providing libraries with very clear training to help staffs offer programs to benefit their users. PA Forward® builds needed pipelines between the library, members of the community and the service area. The PA Forward® initiative trains libraries in best programming practices, provides model programming to be used in local libraries, trains librarians to evaluate their programming, connects library workers to subject matter experts in the literacy fields, and recognizes libraries through the PA Forward® Star Library Program who demonstrate to their communities that they are providing quality literacy programming.
State Goal: Libraries as Community Catalysts

Budget Information

LSTA

MATCH-State

MATCH-Other

Total

$85,012.00

$0.00

$43,417.33

$128,429.33

Intent(s)
Improve the library workforce.
Library Infrastructure & Capacity
Continuing Education and Staff Development

Activities

Activity Details
Title: PA Forward and Partner Training
Narrative: During the period, twelve PA Forward® sponsored programs were carried out and one partner training was carried out, in collaboration with the United Way of Pennsylvania. Sessions include: “Moving Beyond Doctor Google: Providing Consumer Health Literacy in your Library”, “We’re Getting Feedback: The Basics of Program Assessment”, “How to Communicate the Value of Your Star Library Status to Your Community," "Assessment and Evaluation," “Using PA Forward® Communication Tools," and "PA Forward® Civic and Social Literacy." Additionally, the program “More Effective Together: Health Literacy Professionals and Libraries, a Pennsylvania Model” was presented at the 2024 Institute for Healthcare Advancement Conference.
Intent: Improve the library workforce.

Activity: Instruction
Mode: Program
Format: Combined in-person & virtual

Quantity
Session length (minutes): 60
Number of sessions in program: 16
Average number in attendance per session: 47
Number of times program administered: 7

Partner Information

Organization Type of Partner Organization(s):
Libraries: Yes
Historical Societies or Organizations: No
Museums: No
Archives: No
Cultural Heritage Organization Multi-type: No
Preschools: No
Schools: No
Adult Education: No
Human Service Organizations: No
Other: No

Legal Type of Partner Organization(s):
Federal Government: No
State Government: No
Local Government (excluding school districts): No
School District: No
Non-Profit: No
Private Sector: No
Tribe/Native Hawaiian Organization: No

Beneficiaries
Is the activity directed at the library workforce: Yes
For a targeted group or for the general population: General

Locale
Is the activity state-wide: Yes
Specific Locations: No
Library Types

Public Libraries: 4
Academic Libraries: 2
SLAA: 0
Consortia: 0
Special Libraries: 1
School Libraries: 0
Other: 3

Question 1: I learned something by participating in this library activity.
Strongly Agree: 131
Agree: 80
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 7
Disagree: 1
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 0
Question 2: I feel more confident about what I just learned.
Strongly Agree: 118
Agree: 80
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 20
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 1
Question 3: I intend to apply what I just learned.
Strongly Agree: 111
Agree: 87
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 18
Disagree: 1
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 2
Question 4: Applying what I learned will help improve library services to the public.
Strongly Agree: 114
Agree: 85
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 19
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 1

Activity Details
Title: PA Forward at PA Library Association Annual Conference
Narrative: In October 2023, the Pennsylvania Library Association held its annual conference. At the conference, PA Forward® carried out 5 programs. The 2023 Adult Literacy Programming Awards were presented to five libraries from across the Commonwealth. PA Forward® partner The Department of Treasury carried out a program “Striving to meet special needs populations” to highlight Treasury’s ABLE program and services libraries are carrying out for special populations. “The Other Side of the Table: Library Staff Serving as Board Members” discussed serving on community boards to deepen partnerships with organizations to enhance literacy in our library communities, “Caring for the Family Tree: Helping Patrons Select Genealogy Software” focused on Digital Literacy among library users interested in Genealogy. “Twenty-First Century Teens” demonstrated how PA Forward® can be used among teen populations around the state. Because any attendee of the conference can go to any session, we do not have a way to generate a session-specific attendee list for each session, but most sessions had 30-75 attendees from the more than six concurrent sessions and roughly 400 attendees on site each day.
Intent: Improve the library workforce.

Activity: Instruction
Mode: Program
Format: In-person

Quantity
Session length (minutes): 60
Number of sessions in program: 5
Average number in attendance per session: 52
Number of times program administered: 1

Partner Information

Public Libraries: 0
Academic Libraries: 0
SLAA: 0
Consortia: 0
Special Libraries: 0
School Libraries: 0
Other: 0

Question 1: I learned something by participating in this library activity.
Strongly Agree: 62
Agree: 32
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 6
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 7
Question 2: I feel more confident about what I just learned.
Strongly Agree: 53
Agree: 34
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 16
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 4
Question 3: I intend to apply what I just learned.
Strongly Agree: 59
Agree: 35
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 12
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 1
Question 4: Applying what I learned will help improve library services to the public.
Strongly Agree: 55
Agree: 41
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 11
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 0

Activity Details
Title: PA Forward Virtual Programming Collection
Narrative: The PA Forward Virtual Programming collection provides on-demand programming instruction and ideas available for all PA libraries in one of the five literacy focal areas -- Basic Literacy, Information Literacy, Civic and Social Literacy, Health Literacy and Financial Literacy. Each year, libraries with exemplary programming are encouraged to submit programs to be added to this virtual collection. In 2023, 12 programs were added - 3 in Basic Literacy, 3 in Information Literacy, 3 in Civic & Social Literacy, and 3 in Health Literacy.
Intent: Improve the library workforce.

Activity: Content
Mode: Creation
Format: Digital

Quantity
Number of items digitized: 0
Number of items digitized and available to the public: 0
Number of physical items: 0
Number of open-source applications/software/systems: 0
Number of proprietary applications/software/systems: 0
Number of learning resources (e.g. toolkits, guides): 12
Number of plans/frameworks: 0

Partner Information

Public Libraries: 12
Academic Libraries: 0
SLAA: 0
Consortia: 0
Special Libraries: 0
School Libraries: 0
Other: 0

Question 1: I am satisfied that the resource is meeting library needs.
Strongly Agree: 0
Agree: 0
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 0
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 0
Question 2: Applying the resource will help improve library services to the public.
Strongly Agree: 0
Agree: 0
Neither Agree nor Disagree: 0
Disagree: 0
Strongly Disagree: 0
Non-Response: 0

Project Outcomes
Project Outcomes
List any important outcomes or findings not previously reported:
The PA Forward® program continues to be a valuable tool for our partners to connect with local libraries. In the past nine months, the initiative has had conversations with eleven statewide organizations about how to work more closely with libraries. One example is this spring the Pennsylvania Court System was able to share a new resource about Elder Abuse and Financial Literacy to every library in the Commonwealth through PA Forward®'s coordination. The use of the PA Forward® literacy programming framework continues to be very popular among libraires in Pennsylvania. This year the initiative expected to do 12 PA Forward® workshops, however, because of the great demand to learn more about literacy work, we were able to complete 18 workshops thanks to our partnerships and volunteers. 263 libraries are currently working on their Star Library Program certification and maintenance of star status. Close to 50% of the public libraries in PA are impacted and actively adopting literacy concepts of the initiative.
Please briefly describe the importance of these outcomes and findings for future program planning:
Over the last few months, it has been made perfectly clear by the popularity of training and workshop offers that there is a great desire to continue and expand literacy work in our Commonwealth's libraries. Therefore, the recruitment of more volunteer trainers and the communication of training opportunities need to be of a greater focus. The work that the initiative does in recruiting strong partners for local libraries also needs to have a more sustained effort. The initiative will be more proactive in reaching out to partners in the coming year to help libraries anticipate developing needs in the literacy areas and not reacting to changes.
Explain one or two of the most significant lessons learned for others wanting to adopt any facets of this project:
One significant lesson learned is that the initiative is the great need for training among our library workers. The great turnover and retirement of library workers over the previous few years has created a great gap in the skills of those new workers in the ability to carry out quality library literacy programming. Therefore, the initiative must continue to focus on the basics of good program design, understanding of developing desired outcomes, and evaluation to measure desired outcomes. Our initiative leadership has been thinking of this focus as getting back to the basics of quality library programming design.
Do you anticipate continuing this project after the current reporting period ends:
Yes
Do you anticipate any change in level of effort in managing this project:
No
Explain:

Do you anticipate changing the types of activities and objectives addressed by the project:
No
Explain:

Was an evaluation conducted for this project:
No
Was a final written evaluation report produced:
No
Can the final written evaluation report be shared publicly on the IMLS website:
No
Was the evaluation conducted by project staff (either SLAA or local library) or by a third-party evaluator:
Third-Party
What data collection tools were used for any report outcomes and outputs:
Did you collect any media for the data:
What types of methods were used to analyze collected data:
Other:
How were participants (or items) selected:
What type of research design did you use to compare the value for any reported output or outcome:

Exemplary: No
Exemplary Narrative

Project Tags: PA Forward, Literacy, Star Library Program