Global Literacy in the blogosphere

The UNESCO-White House Global Literacy Conference obtained some visibilility in cyberspace for the need to teach everyone to read and write. While the word turns up occassionally on blogs anyway, the run up to the Conference and September 18 saw peaks in interest in "literacy" that I would attribute to the Conference itself. Some examples:

* Republican National Convention Blog 2004 (published the President's and First Lady's remarks in full).

* The International Reading Association ("Bush: Ending global illiteracy a U.S. duty").

* BloggingStock (Posting on the First Lady ringing the Wall Street Bell, mentioned she was in New York attending a conference on global literacy).

* LawInfo.Com (mentions that First lady Laura Bush was in New York for an international literacy conference).

* SocioLingos Africa Blog (a blogger from Mali provides a long posting on the Conference.)

Even those who usually use their blogs for Bush-bashing seemed to see his support for the global literacy campaign to be a good thing, worthy of praise.

Comment: Of course, most people who learned of the conference did so from the press, which covered it extensively. (Google News cites 495 articles in response to "Global Literacy Conference.) Many more people took notice of the postings on the websites of UNESCO, the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Education. Still, many people surf the blogosphere, and the cause of literacy needs every bit of support it can get!