How can libraries and reading be more active partners in delivering community engagement and empowerment?
]]>But this means there's a growing demand for short appealing books. Untainted by any literary "canon", new readers can be the straightest critics once they have the confidence to realise it's not their fault if they are not enjoying a book.
The Quick Reads have proved a hit, with both sales and library loans topping the million mark since the first titles were launched in 2006. The Reading Agency has included these and titles by smaller publishers such as New Island, Sandstone, Barrington Stoke and Accent in our unique database for emergent readers at www.firstchoicebooks.org.uk. Publishers involved in The Reading Agency's Reading Partners programme have also been suggesting backlist titles that fit our criteria - less than 200 pages, minimum 12 point text, a strong "hook" for fiction and accessible formats for non-fiction. But we need more. We'd love to hear from any publishers and authors who would be interested to work with us to entice adults into reading for the first time. Or from anyone else who has suggestions for titles that make great reads for emerging readers.
Genevieve Clarke is a senior project manager with The Reading Agency.
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Do you agree?
Sandy further expands her arguments in the following article which first appreared in BookBrunch column
How many times have we had the conversation about ethnic diversity in publishing? Publishers are looking straight ahead for new markets, instead of at the life that's going on around them, writes Sandeep Mahal, project manager with The Reading Agency.
Our multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society is a growing and important market for publishers. On 21 April at the London Book Fair, I will be speaking at an IPG seminar (15.30-16.30 Marlborough Room) to explore how publishing can become a more diverse industry in terms of what is produced and how to sell it.
I will be suggesting ways to reach Black Minority Ethnic (BME) readers through libraries - the booktrade sector closest to BME communities and changing demographics.
In recent years, the book trade shown its commitment to diversity by taking part in initiatives such as Decibel's Books for All and The Reading Agency's Reaching Readers project. These initiatives explored how new partnerships between publishers, libraries and retailers can expand the BME reading market.
Libraries understand cultural and social differences. This is key to their success in reaching and building a strong and loyal customer base. Their connections with local BME people and partner organisations have helped them develop dedicated services and identify gaps in current provision.
The main challenge for libraries is getting hold of books that BME readers want. There are whole groups of people whose stories are not available because publishers don't publish them. They're looking straight ahead for new markets, instead of at the life that's going on around them. Publishing output is slow to change and libraries report complaints of inaction from library users. There is a huge appetite for author events and new titles.
As a clear demonstration of that appetite to engage, 62% of the participants at the 16 Reaching Readers author events 2007 were from BME backgrounds. An event at Manchester Powerhouse Library saw
There is a hunger for more author visits and Reading Partners - a consortium which aims to get more people reading more by transforming the way libraries and publishers work together - has continued to build on this work. We are opening up rare opportunities for local people to meet writers like Rageh Omaar, Jackie Walker, Constance Briscoe and Hanif Kureshi. They have all done wonderful events with hugely diverse audiences.
In terms of the product, much more needs to be done to broaden the diversity of publishing output. Research by The Reading Agency and HarperCollins provides some fascinating insights into the habits of BME readers. It revealed a growing demand from BME readers for non-fiction, particularly books based on the lives of strong role models. This presents huge challenges and opportunities for the publishing industry in producing the right books to meet these demands.
Five hundred readers were surveyed of which 72% were women and 52% were under 35. The most popular genre was crime, mystery and thrillers. Literary fiction was cited by only 26% of respondents.
Our research also found that BME readers are often being targeted with the wrong material by publishers and the media, and that literary novelists such as Salman Rushdie and V S Naipaul were not popular with the majority of BME readers.
The research and project findings suggest the publishing industry need to follow libraries' lead and address the lack of diversity and representation. Libraries can help publishers reach new readers. Seventy-two per cent of BME people are active library users, with a quarter borrowing weekly and a third monthly.
Building a grassroots ethnic readership for writers through libraries should be a vital part of every publisher's strategy. Slowly, but surely this connection will make a positive impact on expanding the book market.
Sandeep Mahal manages Reading Partners, the partnership consortium which aims to expand the market for reading by transforming the way public libraries and adult publishers work together
"I am absolutely passionate about the important, versatile and sometimes unrecognised role that reading can play in delivering health and well-being. A role that can range from the delivery of health information and self-help therapy at one end of the spectrum through to the sense of well-being generated by being part of a reading group, talking to others about books and empathising with character and story in a way that can throw a lifeline to all sorts of vulnerable people. Reading can build knowledge, grow understanding, connect people up, inject fun and throw a new light on personal experience. That makes it a pretty powerful remedy. And we are only just beginning to explore the healing possibilities of connecting up these different strands in new and exciting ways - for example combining self-help reading or health information with creative practice.
"And at the heart of all this sits the term bibliotherapy - a rather clumsy and awkward phrase, fast going out of fashion but useful shorthand for the power of reading to heal and keep people well."
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| written by Genevieve Clarke, senior project manager for The Reading Agency |
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"Books were a hot topic at last week's TUC learning conference. John O'Farrell regaled 400 delegates with tales from his Utterly Impartial History of Britain; Lola Jaye talked about her Quick Read, Reaching for the Stars; and The Reading Agency launched a booklet about a successful partnership between libraries and trade unions to promote its Six Book Challenge scheme, run in association with Costa Coffee, in workplaces as diverse as Corus Steelworks, Fox's Biscuits, a Royal Mail depot and Tesco in Yorkshire. "There are now 24,000 trained union learning reps across the workforce in England, keen to find ways to entice colleagues into learning centres and on to courses to improve their skills. They're aware of the Quick Reads through support from the TUC. and many run book swaps or small libraries. Schemes such as the Six Book Challenge are ready made as a catalyst to get people talking about reading and learning in the workplace. Read more about the Six Book Challenge Download the Getting Reading to Work booket. Do you agree with this article? Do you work in a library or a workplace and think that the Six Book Challenge could offer you exciting new partnerships? Leave your comments here. Register at the top of the page to comment. |
We're keen to take this work forward by encouraging people involved in the gaming, publishing, research, library and educational sector to join in the debate about the opportunities gaming for reading offers reluctant or emergent adult readers.
We'd like your thoughts. How do you think video games encourage adults to read more? How can the joy of an 'epic win' in gaming engage less confident adult readers? Should we see the use of new technology in reading as an opportunity or threat? And how could The Reading Agency translate its 'analogue game' the Six Book Challenge into something digital and more game like?
To read the report visit www.readingagency.org.uk/adults/gaming-for-reading
To read more about the Six Book Challenge visit www.sixbookchallenge.org.uk
]]>Stephen Page
You don't need me to tell you how difficult the times are going to get for the Public Library Service. I am sorry to be standing here today against a backdrop of difficulty of a magnitude the service may never have known before. As a publisher this seems especially disappointing as the last ten years have seen such an exciting re-imagining of the reading service, giving a strong platform to build on. Libraries are a vital component of the reading industry and the challenge you face is one that must be shared by your partners in the publishing industry. Outside the children's arena until relatively recently publishers had ceased to see libraries as central to the industry. The relatively low commercial significance of library book buying (less than 4% of trade publishers' income in the UK) has meant that the deeper partnership had not flourished as it once had and after the demise of the Net Book Agreement mass market opportunities and global expansion took centre stage. The threat of this new environment, however, brings new focus to what libraries contribute not just to our communities and society, but also to the reading industry and furthermore to its contribution to the creative economy. So what are we doing about it?
The Publishers Association is working hard now to support the lobbying effort to at local and national level, emphasising Public Libraries' dynamic potential to deliver social change and its role in the creative economy. We are working with The Reading Agency and other library stakeholders to hep to create public awareness of the issue at local and central government, and are backing a number of initiatives with authors, the media, and the trade generally.
It is not only for commercial reasons that publishers recognise the importance of the library service. Publishing remains an industry with an element of vocation. Many authors and publishers believe simply in the good that libraries do, but the role libraries play in the commercial and economic landscape has brought freshness to the partnership recently. Reader development and the hosting and nurturing of audience have, though, brought publishers to the table for a more active and involved conversation with libraries and that's part of what I want to talk about today. Before I do that I thought it might be useful to give you a brief overview of what's going on for UK publishers, particularly in the digital arena. It is the crucial context for our involvement with the Public Library Service as we too face a time of unprecedented change.
Ebook sales represent between 6% and 10% of sales for some US publishers. For some books it's much higher - Jonathan Franzen's Freedom has sold 600,000 hardbacks and over 300,000 ebooks so far in the US. In the UK the release of the iPad in April and the Kindle in September has fired the starting gun for a proper ebook market for the first time. Predictions suggest that ebook sales will account for 3-5% of the market by this time next year. To make this possible publishers have to make a giant catalogue of books available digitally which requires royalty agreements, conversion of digital files to epub, storing, pricing, creating metadata, distributing and marketing. It's a giant remaking of the canon and will take a little time - and all this alongside our usual activities, and with negligible extra revenue. However, there are already large numbers of ebooks available, most new titles will be available simultaneously in physical and print editions within the next 6 months, and within a year or so we should be catching up with the US model where Kindle has over 700,000 in copyright titles available. I'll come to the question of how that canon is brought to the library service in moment.
Creating ebooks is not all publishers have been doing. We have also been transforming our marketing and our attitude to audience creation. Look at the publication of Stephen Fry's new book. Penguin created 5 no.1s for the first time. Hardback, ebook, enhanced ebook, app, and audio. Their campaign for the book covered online, offline, home and global markets, created events, and made use of social networks as well as performance. Fry is particularly well-suited to this kind of new model but it created a new benchmark for publishers. It requires new skills. Consumer orientated marketing as opposed to trade marketing. You need technological know-how and imagination to make digital products beyond the ebook. You have to learn how to balance price across a range of products. All publishers will have to invest heavily to allow for this new balance to what they make, where they put their investment, how they generate an audience for all these different products, and how they distribute their wares. The days of pile 'em high aren't gone, but it only represents one facet of the campaign now.
It is this interest in developing audience away from traditional media and the book trade that has led publishers to think anew about Public Libraries. I have to say that without The Reading Agency this would not have happened. It is perhaps interesting that a small, entrepreneurial charity has achieved such a strategic shift in partnership with the commercial sector, and perhaps in a future where the service loses some central strategic support with the closure of the MLA this kind of model may create a path for support from the commercial side of the industry. Miranda and her team brought publishers back to the service as an interested stakeholder. Publishers have been taking books to readers in an increasingly mass market high street. The gap between the successful books and those described as mid list has widened dramatically recently, and it has become harder for writers to build careers. Commercial pressures have made partnering with the trade often more transactional, with less room for building audiences for writers over the longer term. Witness the demise of Borders, collapse of EUK, and the sale of Ottakars. Times are very tough. This has led publishers to seek a more direct engagement with readers, though not necessarily to sell to them directly.
The Reading Agency created, with championing senior publishers, a partnership scheme called Reading Partners to make this happen and has done so enormously effectively. After 5 years 39 publishers are now engaged with the scheme and work closely with libraries to bring authors into communities. Major authors are willing to do this now. Faber recently held events involving Kazuo Ishiguro. Iain Banks is due to do one next week, Ellen McArthur and Chris Ryan later this autumn; Lynne Barber, Blake Morrison and lots more will participate in a massive readathon for Penguin's 75th birthday. More broadly Faber has created a series of poetry and crime events, Random House has done excellent online reading group events, there have been a host of readers days, and imaginative events like Girls Nights In and Historical Readers Panels. Like the growth of festivals from the mid-90s to now I can imagine this network of activities become a perpetual nationwide conversation between authors and local communities. That excites me and other publishers. And going further than that it could also herald the development of the already burgeoning partnership between the high street book trade and libraries. Waterstones are now members of the Reading Partners scheme, and independent bookshops get involved. Connecting the crucial high street stock-holding booksellers to libraries through regular thrilling events could also help the survival of many local bookshops. This may not be your concern, but the survival of an excellent library service and a diverse range of excellent bookshops both seem to me to serve the same goal of a thriving nation of readers which in turn must serve the creative economy, which we know is such a hugely important part of UK plc.
So, publishers are seeking partnership with libraries primarily because it is a place where we can build audience. In doing so we can help bring people to local libraries for events and we can assist reader development programmes. It also gives us a chance to create more awareness around some of our niche publishing areas and audiences including the BME market. There are other things that we can bring - expertise and promotional materials for a start. Publishers create huge amounts of physical and digital promotional materials for their books. Most of this is available to libraries.
When we talk about digital people often jump to the conclusion that we mean ebooks. Well, the first digital revolution for book publishers was in marketing. A few years ago I asked a newspaper editor who his main competitor was. He said CNN. He was having to learn to make moving images, away from text to sound and vision. Similarly publishers are moving from print to moving visuals and audio for their marketing. Our websites are over-flowing with extraordinary content; short films, interviews with authors, promotional videos, samples, audio clips, dramatisations. Our main challenge is populating the internet in places where readers will find this material. Libraries would be an obvious partner in this task. So if you want a website that is rich in content for your library members there is already an abundant amount of material available and working with the Reading Partners scheme I hope that we will be able to get it to you. The Think Tank later this year will be key in deciding best next steps to make this happen.
So what about lending ebooks? For more than a century the author and publishing communities have been in accord with the library service in allowing books to be borrowed from libraries, forgoing any anxieties about lost sales and supporting the central, civilised notion of universal access to learning. This need not change in the digital world, but lending ebooks is a much more complex subject full of greater jeopardy than the lending of physical books. Authors and publishers are already contending with the new challenge of digital piracy and so embracing ebook lending has been slow as authors and publishers have been cautious. Why? Authors and publishers cannot allow a universe in which ebooks can be accessed remotely for no charge without the strictest controls. To do so could undo the entire market for ebook sales. Unfortunately recent activities by some library authorities have only confirmed how potentially damaging e-book lending can be if allowed to operate without controls - some services were lending for remote downloads, without geographical restrictions. This was in breach of contracts between the library and aggregator, and between the aggregator and publisher, and was advertised to the general public as "free e-books, wherever you are, whenever you want". Under this model, who would ever buy an e-book ever again? Or any book for that matter?
However, Publishers are keen to ensure that lending e-books is possible and want to support public libraries in offering access to e-books on the same terms that apply to printed books. A variety of models and suppliers are emerging and publishers are already working with them. The PA has had useful discussions with the Society of Chief Librarians, The Reading Agency and MLA. The members of the Publishers Association have now created an agreed base line position on e-lending. All the major trade publishers have agreed to work with aggregators to make it possible for libraries to offer ebook lending. The following maximum controls were agreed, though I want to stress that some publishers will chose to be less stringent than others. This is merely a base position to ensure that we are able to start to make the complete, vast library of ebooks available for loan:
Firstly the fee paid by a library in purchasing a book covers the right to loan one copy, of one book, to one individual, for a fixed short term period at any given time - various licensing models exist to support this condition.
Secondly, robust and secure geographical-based membership must be in place for all library services, with permanent members required to demonstrate their residence within the locality and with provisions to cater for temporary membership for visitors.
Thirdly, the system works on a download model, whereby library users come on to the library's physical premises and download an e-book at a computer terminal onto a mobile device, such as an e-reader, laptop or mobile phone.
Finally, a downloaded e-book will expire after a predetermined length of time (e.g. two weeks), after which it will cease to be available to read on the library user's mobile device.
As I say, some publishers may take a more relaxed view, particularly of remote downloading, but the above criteria allow for a strong beginning that replicates physical lending. It is worth also saying that this may not be the only model. Subscription services are already emerging as in the academic world - Bloomsbury's Public Library Online being a prime early mover.
We will now work with the digital library suppliers to ensure that this service can be quickly brought to libraries. What's important is that we have been able to establish the principle of support for lending ebooks, and an environment in which this can be done that will put authors and publishers minds at rest while supporting the notion of universal access. It's an important first step along the way and no doubt once underway we'll work out further developments.
I will now hand over to Miranda. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. I hope that the increasing closeness of our partnership will continue. One initiative that Miranda will talk about, World Book Night, will give us an extraordinary opportunity to work together in March 2011, and a chance to shout loud about the essential nature of the library service.
I also hope that our support for you over the coming months does something to assist you in your battle to adapt the service to one that continues to be excellent and that supports the major purposes for which it was designed. You may be sure of our vocal support for that.
Speech by Miranda McKearney director of The Reading Agency at the Public Library Authorities conference on 21 October 2010. Read the full text of the speech here..
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Speech, PLA 2010, Miranda McKearney
The modern reading service
Strategic shift in publishers' work with libraries
There's been a big strategic shift in the last few years. We are seeing publishing houses transform their working practices, hardwiring libraries into their marketing and publicity. Digital directors are now getting involved. We're having an important joint Digital Think Tank later this year looking at how to take reader development on line.
As a charity with a mission to get more people reading more, and an emphasis on social justice, The Reading Agency cares deeply about this shift because it can give local people such rich reading, cultural and learning opportunities. People in all sorts of communities - not just Cheltenham and Hay - get to meet writers and other readers. And through creative promotions experience their local library as the gateway to a much bigger cultural world.
The new publisher partnership is part of the bigger drive led by so many of you here - to turn libraries into social, community hubs for reading. The last ten years have seen a profound re-imagining of the reading service. Reading groups, author events, challenges, baby rhyme times, websites, whole city read ins, volunteering, targeting of special groups like looked after children ...there's been a focused explosion of creative, engaging activity. The public response to this has been remarkable.
It drives me nuts when national media coverage focuses so relentlessly on negative library stories when this new reading service is doing so very well and reversing major trends. Children's work has been most intense and is working magnificently. Children's borrowing has risen for 5 years running. The numbers of children doing the Summer Reading Children rise year on year - looks like ¾ million this year; reading groups have nearly trebled in four years. Participation in our adult literacy Six Book Challenge rose by 50% last year.
It's about much more than these huge numbers. There is an important evidence base for the social impact of this service on people's sense of community, their reading range, literacy levels, confidence and self esteem.
The modern, more engaging reading service also has huge potential to act as a springboard for community activism, engaging local people in shaping services and volunteering. Local authorities pondering their new "duty to involve" should look immediately to libraries . Exciting models like the accredited teenage volunteering through The Summer Reading Challenge should be part of Big Society thinking and the new National Citizens Service.
Recently I met Louis, an inspiring young black man in Lewisham who's been volunteering over the summer to help younger children get through the SRC, and
was struck all over again just how powerfully libraries can impact on the civic and cultural life of communities.
Partnership strategy
Major new partners want to harness the power of this new reading service and get involved. The Reading Agency has a partnership strategy to lever in investment not just from publishers but very different kinds of partners - from the TUC to Orange.
With SCL we are working on plans for an important new Reading Groups for Everyone initiative with big partnership and digital implications .
And out of nowhere this year like a meteor there's the thrilling World Book Night initiative - an army of passionate volunteer readers giving away a million books on 5 March. Huge BBC coverage is promised. We're delighted to be leading on libraries' involvement and to have got librarians on the editorial committee alongside the likes of Stephen Fry and Alan Yentob. It'll be great for library advocacy.
Skills problems
There's a hard edged imperative to the drive to modernise libraries' reading service. We need new solutions to the country's major literacy skills problem, and we need libraries working differently to help tackle it. It's deeply alarming that 1 in 6 young people leave school unable to read and write properly, that 63% of employers want action to improve literacy and numeracy skills.
Practically every job now needs people to be skilled readers and in a digital age, you can't participate in society without literacy skills. There's an urgent need for action, and libraries have a key role to play.
Libraries don't directly teach people the technical skill of reading. But they do have a crucial role in helping people practice and enjoy reading. That enjoyment factor isn't just a nice thing - it's essential to life chances, to social mobility. OECD research shows conclusively how an enjoyment of reading can be the biggest factor in helping children overcome a disadvantaged background and go on to succeed educationally.
The future
I'll finish by turning to the future. Is it going to be possible to go on developing the social impact of libraries' modern reading service in an era of massive cuts? How are we going to hold on to the new partners now interested and investing?
When resources are squeezed it's a time to focus on priorities. If cuts have to be made, let's do it carefully and strategically, with an eye to the long term. And surely continuing to develop the impact of the new reading service should be a priority. No business would ignore the growth trends we're seeing, and no local authority should ignore the outcomes it can achieve for local people.
So I urge local authorities to think very carefully before cutting the expert staff who are leading the new library reading service service. Great hear from places like Derbyshire just how important this work is seen as being.
Because we work across the whole library network, we get a real birds eye view of what's being planned. We've been doing a lot of research over the summer, with authorities in the Future Libraries programme, and beyond. In bigger authorities the general picture seems to be that reader development is seen as core. But in other places, the degree of savings needed is forcing libraries to consider stripping out the staff who deliver the new reading service.
We're also finding that the bigger partnership picture is being lost. For instance, we operate the publisher partnership through a network of 24 UK library reps, and already some are not able to travel to shared planning meetings. Future planning needs to take into account the infra-structure needed to maintain nationally brokered partnerships that bring such rich local benefits.
Our reading of the situation is that in some places there's a very real danger of libraries retrenching to a position where the reading service is basically just books on shelves. That would be a disaster.
At The Reading Agency we're thinking hard about how we could further develop our model to help libraries save money whilst still developing the reading service. We've always helped libraries work more efficiently - the Summer Reading Challenge is a great model of how libraries can make more impact by sharing costs on a massive scale.
We're talking to libraries about smart ways to save money while safeguarding the expertise of the staff at risk, the people who know how to bring reading alive in communities. We're discussing shared services models, with staff working across clusters of authorities, drawing down on cost saving shared programmes and partnerships.
Maybe we could create a new super network of staff, a kind of raft to retain and build expertise and hang on to national partnerships.
If and only if you're an authority or cluster of authorities being forced to consider cutting staff running the reading service, please talk to us, we may have some solutions. Miranda.mckearney@readingagency.org.uk
We've been so proud to be a strategic partner working with libraries on the development of the modern reading service, and we're certainly not giving up now!
My area is libraries, reading and people power, so it's
good to be here at the important point when libraries are about to move to the
Arts Council when MLA shuts. Libraries and reading are often missed out of the
picture when talking about the arts. Weird, because reading is our biggest
participative art form and just think about what happens when you read - you're
instantly plunged into a deep and intimate connection with the writer; your
imagination fuses with theirs to create new worlds and understanding.
So...if reading's part of the arts that must apply to libraries too. Libraries are the way society ensures we can all access the personal power that comes when you're a reader. Reading isn't just a nice thing, it's essential to being part of society. It's an art form that needs to reach everyone. But it doesn't - one in six adults struggle with low literacy skills and libraries are key to tackling this. Libraries are surely the ultimate community enabler, a potent symbol of collective power and civic pride. It would be hard to think of a more important part of our cultural fabric to an agenda that's about community power and action, an agenda which of course predates the Big Society.
Do you agree? Sign in at the top of this page to leave a comment and let us know what you think.
]]>Hear are the speeches and powerpoint presentation that our director, Miranda McKearney, gave at the recent conference organised by the Booksellers' Association alongside:
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