Draft:Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning

The Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning is a nonprofit education center and events venue in Lexington, Kentucky. The Carnegie Center offers K-12 tutoring services, adult writing classes, and various events related to arts and literature. The center started as an organization dedicated to adult literacy but over time became more involved in the literary arts. It has hosted the Kentucky Women Writers Conference as well as literacy organization Operation Read.

Under director Neil Chethik, the Carnegie Center started the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, which recognizes notable deceased authors from the region; the Books-in-Progress Conference, to help local writers prepare their manuscripts for publication; and Carnegie Classics, a celebration where a classic work of literature is used as inspiration for a multimedia event which includes contributions from local artists and businesses.

History
The building for the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning originally hosted Lexington's first Public Library, built in 1992 with a $60,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie on land owned by Transylvania University. When the city opened its Central Branch in 1989, the building was vacated and its future left uncertain. In 1990, Mayor Scotty Baesler committed the building to being repaired and opened as a new literacy center. On February 20, 1990, Lexington Urban County Council tentatively approved, without dissent, the Carnegie Literacy Center.

On March 25, 1991, the Carnegie Library was "reborn" as the Carnegie Literacy Center with a ceremonial "name-painting" where dozens of local "civic and business leaders" wrote the names of their favorite authors on the wall of the old library. With

The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning was founded in 1992 during a ceremony featuring First Lady Barbara Bush, who dedicated it as "a dream come true – an extraordinary place."

Carnegie Classics
Carnegie Classics events are a one-night event celebrating a specific book.