“A life-long thing”

Literacy is very important said Mary Foster-Galasso, Evangeline Parish Library director.
Galasso and Suzie Lemoine, Evangeline Parish Library outreach coordinator, spoke to the Ville Platte Rotary Club at the August 9 meeting.
Galasso provided the club members with parish statistics on the average American College Test scores and statistics on how a lack of reading can effect people’s health, their poverty level and possible incarceration.
According to statistics from ProLiteracy: $232 billion a year in health costs is linked to low adult literacy skills; 43 percent of adults with the lowest literacy levels live in poverty; and 75 percent of state prison inmates did not complete high school or can be classified as low literate.
In 2002-2003, the average ACT score in the parish was 18.8, and the average increased to 18.6 in 2010-2011.
“These figures are not what they are now,” Galasso said. “The parish is making strides.”
She continued, “Literacy for the library is a life-long thing. We are looking at lots of different types of literacy. Suzie is working with the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program, summer reading, the teen program, the adult program and the adult book club. We are looking at things to bring in and story hours for the little children.”
The 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten is a national early childhood literacy program.
Galasso said the parish library system is trying lots of new things to bring people of all different ages into the library and encourage them to use the library.
“There are different types of literacy that people need these days,” Galasso said. “They need to be able to read books, but they also need to be able to know how to download e-books. They need to know how to use computers.”
The library will host computer classes later this fall in September and October.
“It’s great to see adults of all ages come and use different resources of the library,” Galasso said. “In literacy today, you have have to be able to read, you have to be able to analyze, (and) you have to be able to separate fact from fiction because social media is so full of all kinds of things that can be slanted in all kinds of directions.
“You also have to be able to navigate a lot of different websites and be able to find the information you need and it’s not easy. It’s not easy for me. It’s not easy for people who don’t use it on a regular basis. Every web site is different.”
Galasso said staff at the library are limited to what they may help patrons with on the library’s computers.
“We can’t work with people’s private financial and personal information like Social Security Numbers,” she said. “We can’t be responsible for making those decisions for them, about what they choose and what they do, but the more people have opportunities to learn to use and work with computers and the more opportunities they have to read, the more we try to encourage lots of different types of reading.”
Galasso said the parish’s library system has purchased many board books in an effort to encourage parents to sit and read to their children.
“Start reading to them very early because that is one of the real secrets of literacy,” she added.
Galasso continued, “I think we all came from families where books were valued. When books were in the house, we wanted to read. Not everybody does. This provides a place and encouragement.”
Another one of the ways the parish library system encourages young readers is by having a retired kindergarten teacher host small programs for young children at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays year-round. The hostess also dresses up for some of the reading events — Uncle Sam for 4th of July, The Easter Bunny for Easter and as the Cat in the Hat.
“She does a marvelous job with the little ones and it’s small and personalized,” Galasso said. “It’s not like the big programs, the summer reading program where you might have 100 people in the room.”
The library also has book clubs for adults and teens.
“Teens want to read a different type of book than an adult does, yet they are adults in some ways,” Galasso said. “They don’t want the books for the little kids, but they are not adults yet. They need something appropriate for 13- to 17-year-olds.”
In addition to books and computer access, the library also works as a space for crafting.
“We have wonderful crafts that Suzie does,” Galasso said. “She posts them on our web site and encourages people to come and do crafting at the library. A lot of people sit there, and they enjoy that. We have jigsaw puzzles. I started that when I was having chemo at the cancer center because they put out puzzles for people to do while they are waiting.
“What I notice is you get frustrated. You put a few pieces, and you come back and someone has wiped it out. You don’t get enough done. We have found theses puzzles that are like individual birds, butterflies and fish. You can put one together in one sitting, and you can take it apart and leave for someone else to put together.”
Galasso said the main branch’s multi-purpose room is a good place to read, relax, socialize, play chess or other board games or use a laptop.
At the Mamou library, a program for adults rewards readers with a free book bag for reading a certain number of books.
“All of these things are to encourage reading across your lifetime because, I’ve got to say, reading is so important,” Galasso said. “It’s a skill you can enjoy throughout your lifetime. There are so many things that are limited to a certain part of you life, then you are limited with some things, when you get older, you cannot do it.
“I saw it with my own parents though, that my father, when he couldn’t farm, he did a little bit of woodworking, and when he couldn’t woodwork anymore, because of his health, he started reading, and he would read all the Louis L’Amour books. When his eyesight failed him, he turned to audiobooks at the library because they provided the books for the blind. We would sit there together and talk about them. It made his later years much more comforting.”
Galasso came by her passion for library work honestly — her mother was a public librarian.
“My mother just passed away at nearly the age 96 in June,” she said. “She was a public librarian for Concordia Parish and then for Pointe Coupee Parish back when the public libraries in Louisiana were first getting established.
“Throughout her lifetime, almost up until the very end, she loved to read. It was something that gave her a great deal of pleasure as other things she once enjoyed doing like traveling, she could no longer do.”
Galasso said that getting a person to read is showing them a skill that they can use in a job or education and for personal enrichment and enjoyment throughout their lifetime.
“That’s where we stand as a public library,” she said. “We are not there just for school, just for the kids, although we believe very strongly in education and schools in supporting and developing kids as our future. We are here for you from the time you are zero age to the time you are 110. We want you to know that. That’s what being a public library is.”
Galasso then introduced Lemoine at the podium.
“She is also outreach coordinator for whole system,” Galasso said. “She is working with things throughout the whole system.”
Lemoine spoke about the system’s summer reading program.
“Summer reading is not just about the kids,” Lemoine said. “We had a very successful summer. I saw a whole lot of grandparents and great-grandparents. That’s what small town America is all about. We circulated about 8,000 books this summer, between all of the libraries around the parish. That says a lot.
“In addition to promoting the reading program, we also brought in cultural enrichment opportunities. I had lots of good feedback for Mitch the Magician and Matthew Noel, The Yo-yo Ninja. We had Troupe de’ Evangeline and highlighted our community theater. We bring some good stuff to the library system.”
Lemoine thanked library sponsors Basile State Bank, Cabot and Pine Prairie Energy.
Lemoine said parenting in small town America does not happen with just parents anymore. She encouraged grandparents and great-grandparents to bring their grandchildren to the library to the participate in the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program.
“For every 200 books checked out on behalf of a child and read to a child, by a parent or sibling, come back and you will be rewarded,” Lemoine said. “I’ve seen grandparents leave with this bag smiling. Eventually you can brag that you read 1,000 books to your grandchild.”
Lemoine said the library will host its annual bookfest on Oct. 8.
“We will have a 13-year-old aspiring astronaut from Baton Rouge there in her uniform,” Lemoine said. “When she was three-years-old, she told her dad she was going to walk on Mars after she finished college.”
Galasso thanked the club for its support of the parish library system over the years. There are five branches in the parish, and the branches are located in Mamou, Basile, Chataignier, Turkey Creek and Pine Prairie.
“Resources and efforts are spread throughout those locations, not just here,” Galasso said. “This is the hub. This is our main location. This is our headquarters.”