Evaluation of the American Library Association's "News Know-how" Program

This project assesses an American Library Association (ALA) “News Know-how” program, which engages librarians, journalists, news ethicists and students across the country in news literacy education.

The evaluation will provide information that will help the ALA and its partners adjust the strategy for delivering this program as well as provide a final evaluation of the overall impact of the program. The evaluation addresses the following questions:

• What impact does the News Know-how program have on educating the participants about news literacy? To what extent do participants apply and use news literacy skills in their daily lives? How well are the students able to apply the library profession’s information literacy principles to analyzing and thinking critically about the news in all formats?
• Why are some libraries better at delivering the news literacy program than others? What is the most effective service delivery model for libraries to use to implement and offer the program on a regular basis?  How does the service delivery model need to be adjusted to accommodate the various types, locations and patron populations of libraries?
• What is the best teaching model for librarians?  What are effective approaches for collaborating with the educators, journalists and others in delivering the news literacy program?

The campaign, “News Know-how,” is supported by the Open Society Foundations. The lead training organization for “News Know-how” is the News Literacy Project Inc. (NLP), a national nonprofit education program active in schools in New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Bethesda, Maryland.