Zeth Lietzau new Associate Director of LRS

The Colorado State Library (CSL) announces the appointment of Zeth Lietzau as Associate Director of the Library Research Service (LRS). Lietzau has served as a Research Analyst of LRS since 2003, and has worked as Information Services Librarian at the Belmar Branch of Jefferson County Public Library since October 2004.

Lietzau received his Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Denver and his BS in Spanish from Macalester College, St. Paul, MN. He is a member of the American Library Association (ALA) and the Colorado Association of Libraries (CAL).

As an LRS research analyst, Lietzau has been instrumental in transforming the web presence, LRS.org, into a dynamic web site that offers interactive statistics, and in the redesign of the CSL’s LibraryJobline.org. He has also overseen projects such as the annual Colorado School Library Survey and the current Courier Cost Analysis Study, and has been involved in a number of LRS publications.

Academic, Public, School

ALA’s State of America's Libraries Report, April 2007

Released this month, highlights from the report include:

* The number of visits to public libraries in the United States increased 61 percent between 1994 and 2004…there were nearly two billion visits to U.S. libraries in fiscal year 2004.

* Circulation at public libraries in the U.S. rose by 28 percent during the decade, partly driven by significant growth in circulation of children's materials, which grew by 44 percent.

* Attendance in library programs for children was also up 42 percent for this same period.

The complete report and press release is available on the ALA website:
http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2007/march2007/stateoflibraries.htm or http://tinyurl.com/25j52b.

~Nicolle
steffen_n@cde.state.co.us

Literacy in Everyday Life--The Latest Literacy Report from NCES

FROM NCES:
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) just released Literacy in Everyday Life, the most recent publication of the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). This report provides extensive information on the literacy of American adults age 16 and older and changes in their performance since 1992. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between literacy and several demographic variables including education, occupation, and income.

Findings include the following:
* Women have closed the gap with men in Quantitative literacy. They are doing better than men in Document and Prose literacy.
* Younger and older adults have lower literacy than adults in other age groups.
* Median weekly earnings increased with each level of literacy.
* At each higher level of Prose literacy, more adults were employed full time.
* Approximately 51 percent of adults with Below Basic Document literacy and 43 percent with Below Basic Quantitative literacy believed their job opportunities were limited a lot by their lack of computer skills.
* The percentage of parents who never helped their school-age child with homework declined at each higher Prose literacy level.
* Approximately half of US citizens of voting age with Below Basic Prose and Document literacy reported voting in the presidential election of 2000 compared with 84 percent of citizens with Proficient Prose and Document literacy.

Full results are available at: http://nces.ed.gov/naal/


~Nicolle
steffen_n@cde.state.co.us

School, Public