Literacy survey ranks city 5th out of 75

Literacy is a fickle thing, claims America's Most Literate Cities Survey. In Pittsburgh's case, one year, you're up, another, you're down.

The eighth annual survey released Monday pegged the city's 2010 literacy rating at No. 5 among 75 places with 250,000 people or more. In 2009, Pittsburgh was No. 4, a major leap from the year before, when the city languished in 12th place.

The 'Burgh hit its peak at No. 3 in 2003, stumbled to eighth the next year, perked up to No. 6 in 2006, then hit the skids to No. 9 in '07 and bottomed out in '08.

The rating is the brainchild of John W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, who started the survey while at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He drew on figures from these categories:

Number of booksellers, level of education, extent of library access, newspaper circulation, number of local periodicals and Internet usage including online book purchases and activity on local newspaper websites.

Despite state budget cuts and reductions in personnel last year, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's operations placed Pittsburgh third behind Cleveland and St. Louis. One of the factors was "number of branch libraries," a number the library threatened to reduce but postponed action on in 2010.

The city fared poorly in Internet use (46.5) and education levels (17th) while doing much better in newspaper circulation per capita (5.5), periodical publishing (seventh) and booksellers per 10,000 (seventh).

They all added up to fifth place for Pittsburgh, behind Washington, D.C., Seattle, Minneapolis and Atlanta. Philadelphia badly trailed its cross-state cousin at 31.5 in a tie with Charlotte, N.C., while Cleveland landed at No. 14 after three straight years at 13.

Details: www.ccsu.edu/amlc2010.

First published on January 12, 2011 at 12:00 am