Reflecting on the contributions in this volume, this paper engages with the development of widespread concepts of literacy, and gradually moves towards a view in which different literacy systems are seen, and have to be seen, as relatively autonomous. The papers in this volume engage with such a relatively autonomous system, that of grassroots literacy. And when we consider this system in relation to others in the context of an increasingly globalizing world, we notice that grassroots literacy represents the "small print" of literacy-in-the-world.