In 2002, Opening the Book was contracted by SLIC/CILIPS to deliver a two-year training programme involving all 32 Scottish Library authorities, funded by the Scottish Arts Council and SLIC/CILIPS.
This training has provided a grounding in reader development practice for one individual from each library authority and created a network of reader development specialists in Scotland to share ideas and resources.
As well as the programme of training days which ran in three centres across the country, Opening the Book structured a planning and training process for the implementation of a number of national reader promotions in which every Scottish authority participated. The Reader Development Network librarians from each authority met to select a target audience and then to come up with a suitable promotion and plan all the elements of design, implementation and stocklist.
Working in a national network proved very successful and SLIC/CILIPS were able to build on this year by year by sourcing funding for an annual national promotion. The programme participants now run their own regular network meetings to exchange news, information and ideas, as well as developing further cross-national promotional ideas.
Read Mór - 2007
Funding was acquired by SLIC/CILIPS to support another national promotion linked to Highland 2007, a celebration of Scottish culture supported by the Scottish Executive. This provided audience development training and marketing templates for libraries.
www.scottishreaders.net
Jute bag supplied for Scottish libraries Read Mór promotion
So you think you know Scotland and Voices of Scotland Now - 2006
For the national promotion in 2006, the RDN members opted to promote Scottish writers to a new audience of Scottish readers. Two collections of books appeared in Scottish libraries. So you think you know Scotland featured classic and bestselling Scottish authors, with some titles first appearing as early as the 14th century. Voices of Scotland now brings Scottish writing bang up to date with a selection of the newest authors now appearing in print.
The War in Words - 2005
Funding from the Arts Council enabled the programme to be extended for a further year, 2004/5. Further training sessions were delivered to members of the RDN network and another national promotion was planned and implemented. As this was the year of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2, the promotion took this as its theme.
The promotion featured two book collections Battle Front and Home Front.
The promotion also featured a hugely popular replica ration book which was a reader-centred booklist detailing some of the books from the collections.
In 2005 the Read the Festival website was redesigned as a new reading website for Scottish libraries. The RDN members were trained to do site updating so they could add their own selection of new paperback books each month. http://www.scottishreaders.net/ also included all the books selected for each new national promotion via the bandstand link. |
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Read the Festival - 2004
The Edinburgh International Book Festival were partners in this national promotion.
The aim was to extend the buzz of the Festival into libraries across Scotland and to use the Festival activities as a focus for library-based promotions and events.
As the range of authors and titles featured in the Festival is huge, the project focused on a selection of four of the Festival themes and selected a stocklist from amongst featured authors but supplemented with more titles from current library stock, in order to ensure a fresh supply of books for the in-house displays.
The main element of the promotion was the Read the Festival website, which created an online replica of Charlotte Square, the traditional venue of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Click on the image (left) to view the site. The site offered different ways for the user to access the range of books featured on the stocklist, including, in the Cafe tent, a Chef's Surprise section which encouraged the user to choose what flavour of read they wanted, and to have a surprise book delivered to their local branch library. Special 'carry-out' style bags were produced to accompany this feature.
For the in-house book displays, a supply of A3 display bin headers was produced, one for each of the featured themes:
Bite-sized - supplementary promotion for National Poetry Day - 2004
An additional piece of funding was made available by SLIC/CILIPS to support a poetry promotion in all Scottish authorities. It was decided that the promotion would be small-scale and feature a face-on display of recent poetry titles in a specially purchased counter-top display stand. An A4 graphic was produced to highlight the displays.
Print Options - 2003
This promotion targeted new fiction at library users who were visiting the library to use the PCs but not borrowing books.
A new-style acrylic bookstand was created especially for this promotion, which displayed four paperbacks, two of which were face-on. They also displayed a 'Print Options' graphic. Each authority received a small supply of these to be placed alongside the public access terminals in selected libraries in each authority.
A special collection of books was put together specifically to appeal to an audience between 18-35 and used with the stands.
A supply of webcards (business-card sized cards) was produced to advertise the promotion and to promote the accompanying website which held details of how to join the library for PC users who weren't already members and able to borrow the books on display.
The response was mixed, with the promotion being more successful in some authorities than others. The acrylic bookstands are still being used in the authorities for face-on book display and promotions.