Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The Future of Reading

Everett Public Library is joining Sno-Isle Libraries for The Big Read, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts. The program, which began as a pilot in 2006 in libraries throughout the country, was created to in response to a 2004 report issued by the NEA, entitled Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, which found lots of bad news about the decline in reading for pleasure and enlightenment, especially among the young.

The NEA wants "to restore reading to the center of American culture," and to do this they are providing support to libraries and community groups to develop innovative reading programs throughout their communities focused on a single book. Everett and Sno-Isle have chosen The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

I think you can argue about whether reading ever really was the center of American culture, and intelligent people have argued over the methodology of the NEA study that led to the conclusions in Reading at Risk, but public libraries are firmly on the side of whatever gets people reading.

Sno-Isle and Everett librarians have already begun meeting to plan a month-long "Falcon Fest," although the Big Read won't officially begin until May, 2009. With all this planning, I think it's going to be great. There will be lots of copies of The Maltese Falcon to check out, programs in communities all over Snohomish and Island counties designed to get people reading--and to help all of us remember that reading for pleasure can be just that--a pleasure.



Each community event lasts approximately one month and includes a kick-off event to launch