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We don't have a written strategy, although the reading group service is now a mainstay of our reader development work.  View Rob's report on Reading Groups here.

There has been no specific training for library staff, although I have attended a few inaugural meetings to give tips and hints on making groups work. I have also sat in with a number of established groups to put a face to the name and to answer questions about the service.

The most varied group in my experience is probably the lunchtime one I run here at the Shirehall. We are half men and half women aged between 35 and
ver 80, although the majority are current employees of the county council in the 40 - 55 age bracket. Backgrounds include education, management consultancy, auditing, librarianship and dentistry.

We haven't specifically used groups for library service consultation, but are aware that they constitute a ready-made forum for trying out new ideas, and have already implemented some of their suggestions for improving the
service, eg. including a list of available titles on the website, and clearly labelling the genres of titles on the list.

The Community Care librarian has done some work with readers in sheltered accommodation, although it has not been possible to offer a reading group experience where everyone reads the same book. This is on account of the general lack of and the expense of providing multiple copies of large print and talking book titles. We also ran a teenage reading group in conjunction with a school in north Shropshire - it was successful for a while, but eventually petered out.

The reading group members' main contribution apart from reviews is their suggestions for titles to add to the collection, not forgetting their willingness to attend author evenings and other events such as those for the Orange Prize. We are also currently working on a stock questionnaire for readers, so anticipate getting some good responses from reading group members by sending out questionnaires in their book boxes.

Use the link to view the Reading Group website.  http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/library.nsf/open/E05C4E9D2A4BE52E80256CA70035A107