'Tall Tree' Gets the Ax

Reader's Digest will stop funding the $3 million initiative at the end of this month, says Liz Gordon, Tall Tree's project director. But Gordon calls the move "a surprise," because she was hired in January to raise money so the program could continue after Reader's Digest left, which she believed would not happen for another two-and-a-half years.

Claudia L. Edwards, executive director of the Reader's Digest Foundation, says it's misleading to say the foundation is ending the program, because it was originally set for only three years. "We have always talked to the partners about this program continuing up to three years, and funding decisions were made on an annual basis," she says.

Those involved with Tall Tree have praised it for sparking better working relationships between schools and public libraries. The first of Tall Tree's model sites, in New Rochelle, NY, has continued the program even without foundation funding. And a Reader's Digest survey found that school and library personnel in New Rochelle have improved their relationship. "We know them, they know us," says Patricia Anderson, director of New Rochelle Public Library. "Their assistant superintendent has changed, their principals have changed, but the routine now is that a [public] librarian calls them, introduces herself, and the new person at the school has already been acclimated to this easy give and take."

Besides funding two model sites, Reader's Digest spread its program countywide through "mini-grants" and training programs. Those projects will end, and the Tall Tree office will close, but Reader's Digest will provide a final year of funding to the Peekskill, NY, model site and will create a series of guides to help disseminate Tall Tree lessons.--Andrea Glick