Central Connecticut State University puts together an annual list of the most literate cities in the US and no Texas city did especially well, with the possible exception of Austin that came in at 22.5 - tied with NYC.
The study used six factors to make its rankings:
1 - The number of bookstores per 10,000 population - Houston came in 60th.The top cities were Washington DC, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Boston
2 - Education level, which was a mix of the percentage of people with high school diplomas and bachelor's degrees or higher - Houston came in 56th
3 - Internet resources, which was measured by a variety of factors including the number of online book orders and visits to the city's online newspaper - Houston was 21st.
4 - Libraries, which was measured by the number of branches per capita and the number of volumes owned - Houston came in 73rd.
5 - Total newspaper circulation - Houston came in 41st.
6 - The number of magazine and journals published per capita - Houston came in 56th.
Ouch
- Commentary from Atlantic Cities.
- And the Fort Worth Star Telegram:
The back-of-the-pack rankings for Texas cities come as no surprise to Peggy Rudd, who recently retired as director of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, which provides support for 560 public libraries statewide.
You get what you pay for, she said.
"The problem is, public libraries are so underfunded and reclamation costs a hell of a lot more than doing it right the first time," she said.
"I guarantee you we're at the bottom or close to it when it comes to spending. It's one of those situations: Thank God for Mississippi because without them we could be in last place. It's sad but true," said Rudd, who saw the Legislature cut funding for the library and archives by 64 percent two years ago.
The cuts included $14 million in state support for local libraries, she said.
. . . Rudd is not optimistic about a Texas turnaround on libraries or literacy.
"The Legislature is talking about more cuts," she said. "To me, it is so shortsighted. If you really want to improve education in Texas, why would you ignore the resource that has 560 outlets scattered across the state that are perfectly prepared to address the problem of literacy?
"Yet the Legislature does ignore them and look where we are."
