In a recent article on ReadWrite.com, Carol Smith of Google’s Summer of Code said, “Nine in 10 jobs that we’re creating right now require some form of digital literacy, even if they’re not in computer science related fields. Coding is the next step—literacy is the basic understanding of how to interact with a computer, how to interact with applications on that computer, how to make it do what you want.” In 2014, St. Louis County Library partnered with St. Louis Byte Works, an organization founded in 1996 and dedicated to helping vulnerable children between 8 and 17 years old improve their computer literacy.

Working with St. Louis Byte Works, the library offers six weeks of instruction from members of St. Louis Byte Works. The goal is to improve young people’s use of the computer by offering instruction in word processing, internet safety and basic programming. In addition, children in 4th through 8th grade can earn a free computer by attending all Byte Works sessions for six consecutive weeks. To date, we have offered two sets of six-week programs and are planning two more in the spring of 2015.

In the past year we graduated 23 students from the Byte Works program, giving each a computer of their own. A recent comment on the library’s Facebook page gave testimony to the benefit of this program, a grandmother wrote, “My grandson was in the first Byte works program and is using his computer so much, it has really helped him with school.”