Gerry Meek has served on a ton of boards and community projects, including currently chairing the Calgary Heritage Authority.

At our table, Alexis Bahry, Brent Barootes' guest, won the prize for being the first person to produce a valid library card. Next Kurt Schurer won for knowing the Calgary Public Library recently won an international prize for service and ingenuity. The competition with library cards for prizes was brisk.

Gerry claimed "librarian" to be the second oldest profession, right after motherhood. Now that he had our attention, he horrified us with some statistics on literacy. Four out of ten Canadians are illiterate, 15% of Albertans are considered illiterate, and 21% of all Canadians are unable to decipher the simplest of materials other than newspaper headlines.

A one percent increase in literacy would produce a 2.5% increase in the economy. Criminal offenders are three times as likely to be illiterate, because of the high dropout rate from school among that population.

Literacy can raise personal self esteem, no matter the age of the person.

The Calgary Public Library knows to start early to educate parents how important it is to read to their kids. They encourage reading out loud and playing music before the baby is born. The Library finds story time is for the parents, too, because they can see how important it is to read to the children, thus parents want to learn how to read. Starting off simply means the parent can take home a book filled with just pictures, enabling parents to make up their own stories.

The Library has teens volunteering to teach younger children how to read. The same thing happens as Calgary West found when we had the Lord Shaughnessy teens be "reading buddies" to the David D. Oughton youngsters - the younger students look up to the teens, and the teens gain a load of self esteem. And a love of reading is fostered.

A programme Calgary West has long supported, "It's a Crime not to Read", is very successful with the City Police visiting the schools with a Library staffer. They read to the kids, promote crime prevention and let the kids turn on the police car siren - cool.

Catering to the whole family, the Pet Access League encourages bringing the family pet to the Library and reading to the pet.

Grandparents can come to learn to read a menu, and a book, and learn their way around a computer so they can communicate with a grandchild over Face Book or Skype.

Then there is the "literacy series":

• health literacy - reading medical instructions, reports, lab instructions, etc.
• consumer literacy - problems, deals, instructions
• financial literacy - making good choices, banking know-how
• civic literacy - voting, learn about Canada, citizenship ceremony
• environmental literacy - sustainable practices, (the Library is a community leader here)
• legal literacy - advice, background for laws, skills
• computer literacy - download books, cyber seniors linking families
• "mediacy" - Facebook, etc. along with cautions for users

The library stocks over 2.3 million items and makes about 16 million "loans" per year. These items include tapes, videos, games, talking books and "regular" books on just about any subject, and if they don't have it they'll do their very best to find it from another library system.

The loonie Gerry "borrowed" from Mike Carlin was used as a final illustration of value from the Library. For every $1.00 spent in the Library with our tax dollars, we get a $10 return, a mighty fine investment indeed. Gerry urged us all to visit our local library (and bring a grandkid) and "discover what a quiet place it isn't."

In his thanks, Dan Doherty summed it up by saying Gerry had brought the "literacy" issues home to us. Gerry was delighted to take home our world famous Boltman.

reported by Lynne Thornton