Bob Paponetti says he's going to post a picture of himself reading "In the Heart of the Sea".
BOB PAPONETTI: It's actually the real-life account of the whaling ship, the Essex, which the story "Moby Dick" was based on.
It's his way of celebrating International Literacy Day, which was created in 1966 by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a way of bringing attention to the importance of literacy. This year, the Literacy Cooperative of Greater Cleveland is collaborating with local libraries by going where people's eyes are. Paponetti is executive director of the Literacy Cooperative, and he says they've adopted a social media strategy
BOB PAPONETTI: We came up with the idea of having people take a selfie of themselves reading or perhaps reading to a child and post it using our hashtag #CLEliteracy to your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
Paponetti says, similar picture projects are taking place today in cities across the country. The goal is to promote a culture of reading in a time when an estimated 700-million people around the world have low literacy skills.
BOB PAPONETTI: By some measures that means they're reading no better than the average third grader.
He adds that this isn't just an issue in so-called third-world countries --- some 36 million in the US have below basic literacy skills.
