public libraries

Efforts in the District of Columbia seek to help minority kids learn to read and to help reading become a habit.

Famed 20th century writer G. K. Chesterson once said, “Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.”

The concept is simple: take a book, return a book. And with that, what began as a single Little Free Library in Hudson, Wis., is now spreading from lawn to lawn around the globe.

Despite a sharp increase in visitors, the city’s libraries once again find their funding on the cutting board in the mayor’s recent proposed budget.

The Brooklyn Public Library unveiled a new book-printing machine in its main branch at Grand Army Plaza on Wednesday.

The Federal Communications Commission voted to reform the program, first established to subsidize rural telephone service in places where it was not profitable for phone companies to build infrastructure. The reforms will direct funding “to libraries and schools to bolster their capacity to provide digital literacy training to their communities,” according to the American Library Association.

For the third year, the National Center for Families and Literacy will award three libraries $10,000 in grants for exceptional family literacy programs.