Delaware Library BTOP Launch Meeting

With the collapse of the banking industry and the closing of car manufacturing and power plants, Delaware has seen an unprecedented job loss. Now, more than ever, libraries find themselves on the frontline for people seeking help.

With 68,000 functionally illiterate citizens, Delaware Department of Libraries (DDL) believes a renewed focus on basic education and training can help develop a more skilled workforce that is better able to compete in the future.

DDL will proactively combat unemployment and low literacy by creating job training and education centers called Job/Learning Labs in 4 anchor libraries located in the most economically underserved areas (Dover, Georgetown, Seaford, and Wilmington), with specific scheduled sessions for job and educational activities. To reach pockets of the population that cannot access the anchor Labs, DDL will leverage and extend the job/learning content and assets from the anchor labs to the remaining 28 satellite public computing centers at nominal cost to reach a statewide audience.

This project is not a new idea but part of DDL's master plan for libraries; DDL has simply lacked the funding to begin until now. In December 2008, DDL and the Delaware Council on Libraries convened the Delaware Library Summit to identify critical issues in the areas of economic development, lifelong learning, and health. Recommendations from the summit are in part responsible for driving the services proposed in this BTOP project.