Participants

Front row (Left to Right): David Jones and Aliyah Crowder. Middle Row: Maryanna Jones ( Maryanna's Home Page), Mia Crowder ( Mia's Home Page), and Commonplace Academic Advisor Carol Turbett (Carol's Home Page). Back Row: Instructor Dave Weiss ( Dave's Home Page), Instructor Sharon Weiss ( Sharon's Home Page), Claude Williams ( Claude's Home Page), Venissa Smith ( Venissa's Home Page), Dawn Burks (Dawn's Home Page),and Lakeview Librarian Roberta Koscielski ( Roberta's Home Page). Not Shown Donna McNeil ( Donna's Home Page) and Ophelia Glass ( Ophelia's Home Page).

Purpose

Let's Connect Online! is a web page created by adult learners and features the activities of the Let's Connect Book Club. The adult literacy students are from Common Place Family Learning Center. Their book club has met at the Lakeview Branch of the Peoria Public Library since 1999.

Bibliography of Let's Connect Book Club

Peoria Reads

Where the Adult Literacy Students are from

Common Place Family Learning Center

Computer Class Location

River West Branch, Peoria Public Library

Where the Book Club Meets every month

Lakeview Branch, Peoria Public Library

Let's Connect! Book Club

Background on Let's Connect Book Club

The "Let's Connect" Book Club started in 1999. The Peoria Public Library was one of just 40 libraries nationwide to receive a "National Connections" grant to create a book club for adults who are learning to read. This grant was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with the Vermont Council on the Humanities and the American Library Association. The "Let's Connect" Book Club meets monthly at the Lakeview Branch of the Peoria Public Library.

During the summer, the "Let's Connect" Book Club meets weekly at the Lakeview Branch of the Peoria Public Library, so that the adult learners can participate in the library?s summer reading program. In 2001, the Peoria Public Library was one of just 14 libraries nationwide and the first library in Illinois to receive a "Prime Time Family Reading Time" grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with the American Library Association.

During each summer, since the book club started, the library has been fortunate to receive a Penny Severns Summer Family Literacy Grant from the Illinois Secretary of State's Literacy Office to allow the book club to meet for eight weeks during the summers. *The Illinois Reading Council has provided three years of funding for books and for speakers' fees for scholars and storytellers for the Let's Connect Book Club.

The "Let's Connect Online" web page was started as a result of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant*. Adult learners from Common Place are learning computer skills and improving their writing skills as they work with their instructor, David Weiss, and his assistant, Sharon Weiss, to create this web page about their "Let's Connect" Book Club.

*"Funding for this grant was awarded by the Illinois State Library (ISL), a Division of the Office of Secretary of State, using funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), under the federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA)"