A Promising Future: U.S. Public Libraries as Informal Media Literacy Educators

Since their initial founding in the mid-nineteenth century as institutions of informal learning, a major focus of U.S. public libraries has been on providing the public with opportunities for literacy improvement via books and other information media. Today’s public libraries provide their communities with access to a wider range of media than ever before, from books, to movies, to music, to video games, to free Internet access, and they blend these various media into their public programs and services. As one of the few remaining commercial-free “third places” (neither work nor home) (Oldenburg, 1989) in contemporary society, public libraries continue to focus much of their programs and services on literacy efforts with the intent of creating a more informed citizenry. As such, U.S. public libraries are ideally suited to providing media literacy opportunities as informal media education outside of the school environment.