>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
>> Melody Zavala: Thank you
so much, I am really humbled
to be here today with so many
organizations that we know
and respect from Indonesia,
Afghanistan, Vietnam, India,
Canada, and the United States
What a fantastic crowd.
And it's really my
privilege to direct the Books
for Asia program at
the Asia Foundation.
Since our inception in 1954,
our Print Book program
has donated more
than 50 million books.
These books infuse
students with a love
of reading essential
for literacy.
And today, our network
of 18 offices
across Asia reach 9
million people annually
with half a million brand
new print books and eBooks.
Our goal is to provide books to
children and adults to develop
to their full potential
to contribute
to their community
and their country.
So, we were asked to speak
about best practices we use
to advance literacy, and
I'll try to boil that down.
In terms of best practices, for
us, innovation is really kind
of a never-ending pursuit to
empower local communities,
or to find the ways that
empower local communities
to solve root problems.
For sustainability,
we think the secret --
I'm a little uncoordinated
here, excuse me.
Ah, there we go.
For sustainability, I
really think the secret is
to reduce the barriers
to participate.
For replicability, our approach
is to reduce barriers to scale.
And beyond this, it's important
to determine which inputs lead
to which -- solve
which problems,
and to achieve measurable
results.
We really believe it's important
to measure not only data
and analytics, but
to measure attitudes,
and to continue to adopt.
So, turning back to innovation.
To empower local communities
to solve root problems.
In just over the last
two years, we've created
and added a program
called Let's Read.
It's a digital initiative that
we've added to our portfolio
to connect publishers,
readers, and translators
into a single community.
We invite you to
collaborate with us on this.
As you know, there's not
enough books in languages
that children speak at home and
in school to inspire reading.
And at the same time,
there's not enough demand
from school systems and families
to encourage publishers to move
into children's content.
This is the situation in most
of the countries where we work,
and it's a vicious circle.
Our innovation with Let's
Read is to use community pride
and technology to engage
the average citizens
in solving the root problems
of supply and demand for books.
In doing so, we turn them
into literacy advocates
who promote reading
in their communities.
Let's Read includes
a free to use,
open source digital
library platform with built
in translation and
mobile reading apps.
These tools combine with
catalyzing workshops,
and most importantly involve
partnerships on the ground,
empower communities to
create their own libraries
in their own languages.
Local authors, illustrators,
and editors create new
local language content
with creative commons licensing,
and to date eBook hackathons.
These books get added to
the Let's Read platform.
And bilingual community members,
not professional translators,
adapt storybooks
already in the platform
into local languages using
our innovative Crowd Sourcing
Translation Editing tool.
This rapidly builds up the
local language library.
With Let's Read, books and local
languages get created faster,
cheaper, and more inclusively.
Our secret to sustainability is
to reduce barriers
to participate.
We design, test, and
adapt interventions
and collaboration
with end users.
And we use low-cost,
high gain interventions
that local organizations can
mostly shoulder and maintain.
I'll move to the conclusion
and just really say that,
Let's Read has the potential
to reach millions of children
that wouldn't otherwise
have the opportunity
to develop the essential
skill of reading.
It's especially designed
to reach children
who reach minority -- who
speak minority languages,
or those who are out of school
due to civil conflict, gender,
other forms of discrimination,
or poverty.
And it enables them
to access books
in languages they
understand anytime, anywhere.
We look forward to sharing
content with you, collaborating
with you all towards our common
goal of nurturing young readers.
And by increasing the quantity
and diversity of books in ways
that transcends existing
constraints.
Thanks so much.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.