£728 is not a lot of money when set against what it makes possible. But it still has to be squeezed out of somewhere. In Bradford we have persuaded each lending unit to put in a portion of their fiction budgets, topped up with a matching amount of system-wide money. When the reading groups have finished with the books they become part of each unit's stock as a ready-made reading promotion: not just the books, but with the added value of a book list of reviews based on reading group discussions and a slip pasted into the front opening of each book containing hints on how to get the most out of it. Admittedly, over the years we have had the odd turkey amongst the sets, but these have been totally outnumbered by those which have gone on to issue well. And these issues are, of course, on top of the very respectable number of "reads" logged up by the reading groups: up to 6 x18 per book!

When we started our reading groups they were very much a Central Library initiative (with an outpost meeting in a member of staff's house). We now have a reading group meeting in a library in each of our 3 areas, so this involvement of local management helps to soften the resistance when it comes to persuading them to chip in a small portion of their fiction budgets.