NSW Readers Advisory Working group is coordinating some event and promotional ideas for Readers Week during September 2008, which will fall during the September @ your library theme: read @ your library.

NSW Readers Week is Monday 1st September - Monday 8th September and we propose that if you would like to concentrate your focus on one day during that week, you rename that day [insert the name of your local community]'s Readers Day.

Readers Days and Readers Week are designed to get people talking about reading. You can use the week or day to raise awareness about reading in your community, get people back into reading or get your customers involved in reading-centred activities.



State Wide Reading Promotion!
Reading Around our Region

Encourage your library customers to create their own motivational Reading Posters that express how your community feels about reading!

Use the posters created for promoting reading within the library and the wider community and think about running a competition for the best Reading Poster.



We have some other simple intereactive ideas that you might want to try at your library:

Keep It Simple

Lending Mystery Books
Post it Note Display: "Why do we Read?"
Reading Tree Ask customers to vote for their favourite book
Library Display on Reading
"I’m reading..." stickers/badges/nametags - Let your staff and customers display what they read proudly
Public Acts of Reading – do you have public areas near the library where a lot of people read, set up signs or take photos!
Check your Library Management System for the top five borrowed books – Create a "did you know...?" promotional message based on the results Choose a good reading list from the Wiki and reproduce it for your customers

Step It Up

Ask readers in your library for permission to photograph them and use the photos for promotional purposes
Promote and run a Book Chain
Host a Reading Discussion Group (different from a Book Discussion Group because you discuss Reading, rather than just one book or topic) Contact Local Personalities and organise to take photos of them reading their favourite book - use for promotional/motivational purposes
Run a Reading awareness-raising campaign within Council
Rebrand existing library programs to promote and encourage – eg Storytime
Use photographs of staff reading to promote/motivate/encourage reading
Change the screensavers on your public computers/opacs or promotional display monitors to display some of the above images that you create

Go For It

Host a reading themed Living Library where your Living Books talk about their own reading experiences
Map local area reading habits or books written in or about your local area
Host talks about reading – Genre discussions, "Why we read" etc
Use Readers Week as an opportunity to launch new programs, such as a Baby Bounce and Rhyme or Literacy Programs
Add a reading angle at your local writers festival
Get your community involved – eg Parkes Annual Reading Day