Today’s labor market puts a high premium on literacy skills, even in jobs that once required little education or training. Not being able to read or write can stand in the way of finding and keeping a job or earning a living wage. Literacy can also affect one’s ability to be an educated consumer, an informed voter, and a helpful parent or grandparent. As leading providers of literacy programs, public libraries strive to help adult students — many of whom are also juggling full-time jobs and responsibilities for children — participate in programs long enough to make a large and lasting difference in their skills.

Launched in 1996 by the Wallace Foundation, the Literacy in Libraries Across America (LILAA) initiative helped libraries improve their adult literacy programs, with a focus on finding ways to increase learner persistence. In the LILAA persistence study, MDRC and the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL) at Harvard University teamed up to examine the implementation and effectiveness of strategies used in five libraries around the country to increase persistence.