St. Paul: Among the most literate cities in America

And getting stronger every year!

City

Overall Rank 2007  06 Rank  05 Rank

Minneapolis, MN 1 2 2Seattle, WA 2 1 1St. Paul, MN 3 5 9.5Denver, CO 4 8 6Washington, DC 5 3.5 3St. Louis, MO 6 12 15San Francisco, CA 7 9 5Atlanta, GA 8 3.5 4Pittsburgh, PA 9 6 8Boston, MA 10 11 7

Central Connecticut State University, America’s Most Literate Cities, 2007

“St. Paul is certainly a bright spot”• St. Paul has moved up in the rankings every year from 11th to 9th to 5th to

3rd. • It is the only city in the United States in which Sunday newspaper

circulation has increased per capita and one of very few in which weekday circulation has increased.

• St. Paul's library system is good and improving: it is one of the few cities which improved in all three variables of branches, volumes, and circulation.

• Public access to internet communications has increased substantially in every year the study has been conducted.

• St. Paul has had a large increase in the publication of professional journals and an even more impressive increase in the publication of magazines.

• The city has held its own in very declining markets for bookstores. • And St. Paul has the fifth highest percentage of the population with a high

school diploma and the tenth highest with a college bachelor’s degree.

Central Connecticut State University, America’s Most Literate Cities, 2007

3

The Pioneer Press has grown circulation for three spring reporting periods in a row

The Pioneer Press was the 4th fastest growing Sunday paper among the country’s top 50 newspapers

Source: ABC Publisher’s statements, March, ’05 thru March, ‘08

M-F SundayMarch, 2008 191,768 252,055March, 2007 191,591 251,843Change 177 212% change 0.1% 0.1%

Mar, '08 vs Mar '07 177 217Mar, '07 vs Mar '06 511 300Mar, '06 vs Mar '05 3,730 4,070

Current Publisher's Statement

Sustained growth across four publisher's statements

Pioneer Press

“America’s Most Literate Cities” Methodology

• This study attempts to capture one critical index of our nation’s social health—the literacy of its major cities (population of 250,000 and above). This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.