About PA Forward

The Punxsutawney Memorial Library has earned its fifth Silver Star in the Pennsylvania Library Association’s PA Forward® Initiative.  The PA Forward® Initiative was created to give voice to what the library community already knows, and what other states throughout the nation are also recognizing:  with the right support, libraries are ideally positioned to become community centers of information, technology, and learning that will fuel educational and economic opportunity for all citizens.  Libraries are no longer just buildings that house books.  Today’s libraries are agile institutions serving real-life needs.  PA Forward® and the Commonwealth’s libraries will make library services available for all Pennsylvania citizens; strengthen state supported library services and leverage greater local and private support.  For public libraries, PA Forward® will position them as essential to a growing customer base of private and municipal organizations and individuals and as high-quality early learning providers that ultimately save taxpayer dollars otherwise needed for remedial programs.  PA Forward® will ensure that libraries have the resources they need to keep Pennsylvania moving forward. 
The Punxsutawney Memorial Library is committed to providing services and programs that meet all five of the PA Forward Literacies.  
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Libraries can push Pennsylvania to achieve one of the highest literacy rates in the country, a better trained and more skilled workforce, and a growing tax base, economy, and population. Your Punxsutawney Memorial Library offers:
  • Literacy Programs for all ages
  • Summer Reading for all ages
  • Skills Kits for all ages​
Libraries can help all Pennsylvanians learn how to use online resources and current technology to improve their job skills, and to participate fully in a digital society.  Your Punxsutawney Memorial Library offers:
  • Technology tutoring by appointment
  • Access to FREE Wi-Fi and various research databases
  • STEM programming for youth
Libraries can give citizens of all ages the knowledge and skills they need to improve their lives, to contribute effectively to their communities, and to participate in civil discourse.  Your Punxsutawney Memorial Library offers:
  • Opportunities to socialize and participate in social discussion:  Color Therapy Group, Book Club, and Author Talks
Libraries can help citizens become better informed consumers and guide individuals, small businesses, and other organizations to contribute to the economic vitality of their communities.  Your Punxsutawney Memorial Library offers:
  • AK Health Programs
  • DHS News in Health Newsletters
  • Access to Elemy – a free online Applied Behavior Analysis tool
  • Care Giver Kits 
Libraries can play an important role in helping citizens actively manage their own and their family’s well-being, making them effective partners with their health care providers and reducing costs.  Your Punxsutawney Memorial Library offers:​​
  • Tax forms
  • Access to Bankrate, an online guide to savings strategies
​The PA Forward® Star Library Program required libraries to “brand” their programs and communications and to talk with their communities about how libraries across the Commonwealth are moving PA Forward®.  There are several steps to becoming a PA Forward® Star Library requiring libraries to submit documentation of their efforts, which is reviewed and verified by a committee of peer librarians.  Those steps demonstrate that the library has incorporated the five key literacies into their programming and communication.  The PA Forward® Star Library program awards a bronze, silver, or gold star to a library as it adapts and integrates the initiative’s core values. 
 A gold star is awarded once a library has achieved the bronze star and silver star status in each of the five literacies and has shown how it has fully integrated the PA Forward Initiative into its programming curriculum and a commitment to providing the programming fuel to move PA Forward®.