Capitalising On Reading

Posted on October 25, 2005 in Uncategorized

The London Libraries Development Agency is a small organisation with just 2 permanent and one part-time staff members, which is based in the heart of London in Westminster Reference Library, just off Leicester Square. The Agency is dedicated to the promotion and innovation of the capital’s library services in whatever organisation they are based, but most people’s experience of a library, once they have left the education system, remains with the public library. In the four years since its inception, the LLDA has done some really exciting work in this sector in particular. 

Unlike other major cities, the public libraries in London are not provided by a single service but are run by each of the 32 boroughs and the Corporation of London. This has resulted in fragmentation and certain ‘invisibility’ not present elsewhere, which was recognised in a Comedia Report: ‘London – Library City’ from whose recommendations the LLDA was founded.  This article concentrates on one of the most important elements of the LLDA’s work thus far – that of its pan-London reading promotions.

Early Days

In 2001 the LLDA was awarded £294,000 from the DCMS Wolfson Public Libraries Challenge Fund to develop Read Routes – a literature promotion that was to take place twice a year in every London public library. This was the first time that London’s public libraries had worked simultaneously on their own reading promotions. Read Routes took on the theme of London as a backdrop and its first promotion, Unzip your Lips focussed on family reading, with a selection of books suitable for sharing.  This was followed by Capital Offences, which took on a crime fiction theme with murder and mystery set in the capital, as well as a 3-month programme of author events across London’s libraries in the summer of 2002.

In May 2003 the LLDA paired up with the London Comedy Festival for WitLit, a comic fiction promotion, again with stories set around the London Underground network. The WitLit promotion also included a writing competition for library readers young and old, and winners had their work performed in a show produced by author and stand-up comedian, Mark Blake, in the Soho Theatre in October. By autumn 2003, those funding LLDA reading activities included the Arts Council England and the London Museums Archives and Libraries Partnership, but funding was on a somewhat reduced scale.

London Libraries goes live online

In September 2003, a groundbreaking online service for London’s public libraries, funded by the New Opportunities Fund, What’s in London’s Libraries, allowed readers for the first time to search several London public library collections from a single web page.  There currently remain three catalogues to be added to the service, but it has already proved to be extremely useful for the many people who care little for London’s administrative boundaries because they live and work or study in different boroughs. 

By October 2003 it was felt that the London location theme was no longer sustainable so the Departures promotion featured foreign novels in translation and, using the metaphor of air travel, the leaflets describing the 50 featured books was in the shape of an airline ticket. This promotion was the first done on the reduced budget, and although the production values of the materials were high (and booklets were requested by one independent bookshop), they were costly. As a result, Departures did not have a web presence, and we realised that we needed a new strategy to attract new audiences to libraries. The web was one way to do this, and press and PR was another.

London Libraries Recommend

In late spring 2004, the steering group – which co-ordinates the reading promotions – hit on the idea of London Libraries Recommend as the summer promotion. Each of the 33 library authorities was asked to nominate up to five titles they felt to be good reads and which Londoners would enjoy. The Steering Group then excluded titles they felt to be ‘overexposed’ or which had recently been promoted locally or as part of earlier Read Routes. For the first time we also included information on the website as to whether books were available in large print, as talking books or in Braille through Revealweb (www.revealweb.org.uk) for visually impaired readers. In addition, the Read Routes website included some of the comments from librarians as to why they had chosen the books. In common with previous promotions we also invited readers to post details of their favourites with a short review.  As a result, the Evening Standard picked up on the promotion and featured a short piece on summer reading ideas from the capital’s librarians.

Spurred on by this success we looked to other media-friendly ideas, and in November launched Reel Fiction to coincide with the London Film Festival, who collaborated on a London Libraries website competition to win tickets to the premiere of Vanity Fair, one of the featured titles. Not surprisingly, this attracted a much younger audience to the website than we were used to. Again, the Evening Standard ran the story ‘Librarians pick top 50 books behind the movies’ which was picked up on by other national media. The Reel Fiction selections were listed on the London Libraries website and for the first time we united a specific reading promotion with the wider library offer of the back catalogue, the older and out-of-print books that are not available on the high street. Needless to say, hits on the website soared in the days following the press coverage.

In January 2005 we developed this further by launching the London Libraries Recommend section of the website, and have made some initial steps towards unifying features of the What’s in London’s Libraries service with the reading pages. As a result, you can now click on a link to find a library reading group, find your nearest library, search the catalogues, or browse one of the new or past reading promotions all from the same page – and just in case you’re interested it’s www.londonlibraries.org.uk/read