For more information contact project director, Margaret Monsour.
Alliance Library System, a regional library system in central Illinois with 260 member libraries, is partnering with six member public libraries in its 14,000 square mile service area to offer a variety of programs. Some are on-site programs; other public libraries in the service area provide outreach; and public libraries in the virtual world of Second Life are delivering programs and materials targeted at baby boomers on the importance of unbiased investing and saving. In addition to traditional programs with a speaker, Alliance extends programming to rural areas to publicize the project at area county fairs and carnivals with an outreach van. FINRA materials are posted on the web, in print form via the programs and van, and in electronic formats.
Ames Public Library is partnering with Iowa State University Extension to offer investment education appropriate to three life stages. The three generational groups that roughly correspond to these life stages are Generation X; Baby Boomers; and the Silent Generation. Smart Investing- The Times of Your Life includes a large general media campaign that uses radio, newspapers, and the Internet to increase awareness of investing, alert the public to the library’s programs, and direct them to the library for further education. A strong investment collection enables well-trained staff members to direct interested patrons to the resources. The library provides a strong web presence designed to direct patrons to self-study materials. The library offers online classes and the same content comprises a series of in-person classes developed in partnership with Iowa State University Extension. The library is also creating on-going investment clubs and book clubs as investment education opportunities. With this multi-tiered approach, the library and ISU Extension plan to reach the greatest number of community members regardless of their learning styles and investment education needs.
Athens is home to Georgia’s flagship public university campus yet has a high school graduation rate 20 percent below the state average and has the fifth highest poverty rate in the nation. The library is developing a basic financial literacy initiative helping low-income workers with low educational attainment. The library is partnering with the Athens-Clarke County Literacy Center, the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, OneAthens (a citizens group formed to address poverty), local public schools, and the Family and Consumer Economics College at the University of Georgia to integrate financial literacy education into GED preparation programs in five community sites.
$ave $teve is a multi-faceted investor education and training program that takes an individual from rookie to knowledgeable investor no matter what their age by using a family of characters ($ave $ara, $ave $elma, and $ave $am) who guide library patrons through age-appropriate online tutoring. Elements of the program appeal to children and teens who haven’t given investments a first thought, adults who never thought they could invest, and seniors who think the time to invest has passed them by. Norfolk State University is partnering with the library to expand virtual library services for patrons in the Hampton Roads region. The program reaches out to the media centers in Chesapeake’s 41 public schools to promote and enable student use of the $ave $teve family of personal finance characters.
Cuyahoga County Public Library, in collaboration with the Ohio State Cooperative Extension, is developing an intergenerational financial literacy project for youth (primarily low income) in grades 5 through 12 and their parents in eight of the library’s branches. Activities designed to appeal to older children include developing a Web space, publishing a newsletter and creating a television segment for their school. A comprehensive approach includes learning investment concepts in an integrated curriculum. The project supports learning objectives for schools consistent with Ohio’s personal finance and economics requirements through after-school and summer financial literacy programs.
Because young families are the library’s largest group of users, the Durham County Library is creating a financial workshop series for young parents of Durham’s 37,000 preschool and elementary school children, with a special emphasis on saving and investing for college. To help busy young parents find the time to get the information they need, the library is developing a Web page and providing direct access to financial databases and other relevant materials. Video and audio podcasts of library workshops, an e-newsletter on personal finance and online chats with experts are all outreach efforts to make the program easily accessible and accommodate the hectic schedules of young families. Library staff training follows two tracks. It prepares all library personnel to market the investor education resources available throughout the library. At the same time, reference staff participates in more intensive training on using investment-related collections and electronic resources.
Fargo Public Library is conducting an outreach campaign to assist three audiences and expand use of the library’s financial literacy resources and programs. Messaging and strategies are shaped to reach young adults and seniors as well as a local community of new Americans and English language learners. Fargo has experienced significant growth among immigrant communities, and many are refugees from conflicts around the world who speak a variety of languages: Bosnian, Somali, Kirundi, French, and Swahili to name a few. This audience has a critical need for the most basic type of financial education on topics such as bill payment, budgeting and using a bank. Some of the library’s partners include Fargo Senior Services, the Immigrant Business Development Center and the Tri-College University Consortium. Through a series of programs on personal finance and investing, the library and its partners seek to break through substantial language and cultural barriers to explain safe and effective financial practices and resources.
Fond du Lac Public Library is designing a virtual and in-person “Money Smart Neighborhood” and “Money Smart University” as year-long companion components of “Money Smart Week Wisconsin,” a statewide financial literacy campaign. Special attention is focused on the personal financial education needs of Baby Boomers nearing retirement and the Generation Y cohort who will replace them in the workforce. A recent survey by one of the partner agencies, the Fond du Lac Area Association of Commerce, indicates that 50 percent of the local workforce will retire in the next ten years. Additional partners include the University of Wisconsin Extension and Marian University Working Families Grant Program.
Glendale Public Library is developing multi-session financial and investor education seminars at library and community locations. Several audiences in the library service area, military service members at nearby Luke Air Force Base, low- and middle-income adults (both English and Spanish speaking), and teens from various economic backgrounds are engaged in “Financial Fitness” courses. Neighborhood Housing Services of Phoenix is a partner, and instructors from Glendale Community College and the Carey School of Business at Arizona State University are proving instructors for courses that range from basics through retirement planning.
Greenville County Library System is focusing on the financial and investment education needs of women ages 18–64 with particular emphasis on low-income heads of households. The library is partnering with faculty from the Clemson University Finance Department to offer a series of workshops on weekday evenings and Saturday mornings. Recognizing that child care may be a barrier to participation for some women, concurrent children’s programming that emphasizes hands-on activities and focuses on financial literacy is offered with the Saturday morning series.
Loveland Public Library, with partner Colorado State University Extension, is offering “Money Talks” at the library and on Loveland’s cable TV station on sixteen topics ranging from the basics of budgeting to retirement planning. For several years Loveland has appeared on lists of “best places to retire” and as a result has a growing retiree population, which the library and other community agencies are committed to serving well. To help prevent financial fraud among older investors, the library is developing education and outreach efforts in partnership with the Loveland Police Department, the Larimer County Office on Aging, the Colorado AARP ElderWatch Project and local volunteers.
The Milwaukee Public Library project includes components to improve personal finance library collections at all library branches; provide advanced training to professional staff in the use of print and electronic investment resources and establish partnerships with organizations that focus on service to women, members of minority communities and seniors. The Greater Milwaukee Literacy Center provides basic banking and investment information and these printed materials will be translated into Spanish. For over 40% of city residents, the library provides the only access they have to the Internet. This expanded access to investor education resources through the library’s website and additional partnership development through this Smart investing @ your library program extends outreach opportunities to broader population within the community.
Naperville Public Library is creating online video tutorials for beginning and experienced investors to reinforce that the library is a valuable first-stop community resource for investment education. Project team members from the Naperville Chamber of Commerce are helping with marketing along with staff from several school districts and the Naperville Community Career Center. A wide variety of investor needs and financial literacy levels from high school students to older adults are being addressed with interactive forums and innovative programming in partnership with reputable and unbiased financial organizations. Seminars provide high school and college students with money management skills in preparation for financial independence. Upgrades improve the accessibility of investing research tools on the library’s Web site. Staff development is part of the overall effort and adult services librarians are being trained in investment research strategies.
An intergenerational approach and a five-part investor education forum are features of this Smart Investing@ your library program. The two groups include the younger generation of tweens, teens, high school and college graduates, young professionals plus Boomers nearing retirement. Topics range from learning about compounding and the time value of money for children in grades 3-6 and discussing basic investment principles for teens in grades 7-12. Boomers focus on options for retirement planning. The forum is offered over 10 weeks and includes investing fundamentals for a lifetime, savings tools and both groups have the opportunity to learn from each other.
New Haven Free Public Library is integrating financial literacy resources, discussion groups and programming as permanent features of its 50+ Transition Center. Finances@Fifty is aimed at adults who are planning their pre- and post-retirement options. The library is engaging many partner agencies, among them: Quinnipiac University Financial Technology Center, Albertus Magnus College and Yale University. Business librarians at these nearby higher-education institutions are training New Haven’s reference staff, so that they in turn may provide one-on-one and group assistance to Transition Center patrons. The library is also actively encouraging more academics, especially faculty in the fields of business, economics and finance, to become involved in library programming about investing.
The Newton Free Library is sponsoring a sustainable, inter-generational retirement planning club for women in partnership with two community organizations (SOAR and Discovering What’s Next). The Retirement Planning Club offers weekly financial literacy classes to help participants draft individual basic retirement plans. Monthly club meetings reinforce the learning and provide a forum to continue refining these plans. Reference librarians receive training on investor education resources in partnership with the Boston College Center for Retirement Research.
Library staff and community presenters are engaging members of the Hispanic community at two branch locations, in an eight-part bilingual series on basic investing themes. The Hispanic Business Initiative Fund and Rollins College are two main partners on the project team. Workshops include group activities and social networking. The workshop content is recorded and then streamed on the library’s website and also burned on DVD’s for circulation. Content may also be downloaded to iPods and Mp3 players. The library staff is creating a bilingual "eGuide" on personal finance that is featured on the library Web site and library patrons have access to an investor education video-on-demand service.
The Pioneer Library System’s financial educator is conducting two seminars per month at each of the nine public libraries in the region or at community locations served by the libraries. Audiences include young children in after-school programs, teens in math classes, small business owners and the self-employed, and seniors in assisted-living communities. Each seminar will use interactive, hands-on materials. The Library is also working closely with public schools to support recently passed legislation, Passport to Financial Literacy, which requires personal finance instruction for grades 7 through 12. Pioneer is partnering with state and regional agencies including the Potawatomi Nation, Chickasaw Nation and the Oklahoma Securities Commission to coordinate staff training.
Riverside County Library System is engaging five libraries in the system to create models of easy-to replicate financial literacy programs for specific audiences. These models will then be shared with 28 additional libraries in the system. The models include an intergeneration program for children in grades 3 to 6 and their parents; a “Morning Coffee Investment Club”; financial workshops for youth ages 14 to 18; a seven-part basic information series called Money Skills for Life; and a project coupling story time with financial literacy workshops for parents. A new Web page will feature self-paced tutorials, links to program archives and financial literacy resources.
Through monthly lunchtime lecture sessions and discussion groups, professional women ages 20 to 64 are receiving information and resources to improve their personal investment skills. Coaching sessions from certified financial planners are an integral part of the program. Twenty Smart Volunteers were selected and screened by certified financial planners and receive a bank of ten hours of one-on-one financial planning advice. These volunteers also lead book discussions at branch libraries based on what they have learned. A Smart Investor page on the library’s Web site brings together many investment resources into one web location. Books cited on the page are used as the basis for Investment Book Discussion Group Kits prepared for the groups and used concurrently with youth activities. Pod and video-casts of each session are available for downloading from the Smart Investor page on the Web site.
Schaumburg Township District Library (STDL) and Rotary Club of Schaumburg-Hoffman Estates Charitable Foundation, Inc (RCSHE) are producing an investor education portal to help adults and teens in Schaumburg Township move from non-savers to knowledgeable investors. The centerpiece of this portal is a series of web-based investor education videos. The web resources are complemented by an in-library exhibit that provides a high-impact visual lesson about investing. Both the web resources and the exhibit are being marketed to the community through a coordinated PR campaign, kick-off open house and the multi-media exhibit that will travel to other Illinois libraries. Activities for teens include a video scavenger hunt and an investment-themed activity night, planned by the teens themselves, and features investment-related games and activities.
Southeastern Libraries Cooperating (SELCO) is working in partnership with public television station KSMQ to offer locally produced financial education programming. KSMQ broadcasts a series of thirteen 30-minute programs entitled “Financial Connections,” in rural and small-town communities. Programming at Southeastern Minnesota libraries complement these broadcasts with materials and online resources. DVDs of the broadcast programs are provided to all of the public libraries. In addition to the broadcast program, a regional website is being created with investor tools. Resource guides are being developed that guide patrons to materials in the library, online databases, and selected websites. A “Financial Connections” blog is available on the KSMQ and SELCO websites, offering viewers and patrons an additional opportunity to ask questions of the experts.
Ten Minute Topics @ Your Library is a new approach to solving an evolving problem- how to present important, unbiased investor education information to a busy public in a way that appeals to them. As part of this approach, a multi-media series is being produced, marketed and distributed by the library in partnership with community television and the Service Corps of Retired Executives. The information is presented as ten minute modules on the consumer’s timetable rather than at the convenience of the information provider. Professional development is another important component and reference librarians in 27 branch facilities throughout the 7,000 mile region are receive training on investment resources. During the project, collections, in a variety of formats, will be updated at both online and at branch locations.
Winfield is a rural community of 12,000 in a county of 30,000 people. The Woman to Woman program developed by Winfield Public Library provides educational and supportive services to women by women in a communal format that encourages learning. In coordination with the Chamber of Commerce and other community partners, they are working with female-dominated businesses and organizations to provide classes, mentoring, and other resources to encourage fiscal responsibility, investing/saving practices and continued lifelong learning and growth. The library is also creating a series of reference finding tools on investing topics for easier access to quality resources.
Baby Brilliant Goes to College is a financial literacy program for low to moderate income families with young children. Financial literacy encompasses many strategies and the library’s approach includes a collaborative effort with Mahoning County Financial Stability Partnership. This consortium of Youngstown/Mahoning County United Way agencies and other partners concerned with local economic development provides earned income tax preparation services in branch library locations. Up to 25% of families in Mahoning County may have missed out on earned income tax credits totaling upwards of $6.6 million.
Locating tax preparation services in meeting spaces in branch libraries, is an opportunity to present programs in financial skills management and to help families to deal with debt, avoid debt, and help families save for their child’s future. Baby Brilliant Goes to College uses a multi-media format of print and web-based content, web and pod casting, direct service programming and financial awareness advocacy.