WASHINGTON (AFP) - Seattle, the west coast haven of coffee, culture and the Arts has been named America's most literate city.
A study put Seattle directly ahead of Minneapolis, Washington D.C., Atlanta and San Francisco in terms of literacy, which researchers said was critical to a city's long term economic and social success.
Researchers at Central Connecticut State University surveyed the literacy of 69 of America's largest cities in terms of newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and internet use.
Author Dr. John Miller said the purpose of the research was to help improve the quality of life in American cities, noting that El Paso, Texas, had launched a literacy program after faring poorly in the survey a year ago.
"I hope other cities follow suit, invest in libraries, and do other things to promote literacy," he said.
"At the family level, even the simple step of turning on the closed captioning of TV sets can significantly improve literacy."
I tel'd yoo we wuz smart and well-readed, in fact this reminds me of a qwote from one of my favorite authors, The Simpson's, where homer seaks to read a book with a vampire as the mane carakter.
ReplyDeletewut wus I tokken about????
oh yea. the new downtown libary gives you vertigo and costed a hunnert million to bild, but you can't get into a branch on a mondy befor 12 and thers 29 holds on the latis besseller out from the publisher.
also the house you dezine me will be identical to the new branch library jes bilt that's by my sonz skool. even tho that's not about boox.
My first independent comission :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to hear about a city that cares about their libraries and a place that has large numbers of readers. With the rampant illiteracy all over this country, even from people who can functioanlly read, I wonder if most of the rest of America is going to Barnes & Noble for the coffee. LOL