The Bookseller.com

22nd August 2008

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Reading Partners for kids

14.05.08 Caroline Horn

The Children's Reading Partners was launched by The Reading Agency (TRA) at the Booksellers Association conference this week, heralding a "new era" of collaboration between publishers and public libraries, according to TRA. It follows the same structure as the existing adult Reading Partners programme, also managed by TRA.

The children's partnership scheme involves 12 children's publishers, the Publishers Association and the main children's library bodies. The programme will provide a "structured and strategic" way for publishers to work with regional libraries, said Miranda McKearney, director of TRA.

"We now have big national building blocks in place that we did not have five years ago," she said. "This means we can now link publishers into the kind of networks that our Chatterbooks reading groups and our upcoming teenage website provide."

Ten children's publishers have signed up for the two-year pilot: Faber, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, OUP, Scholastic and Walker Books. Bloomsbury and Egmont have agreed one-year packages to work with the libraries' teenage website and Chatterbooks reading groups respectively.

The first strategy meeting will take place in June to discuss how publishers want to work with the library network. Publishers will be given access to the Chatterbooks reading groups, the teenage programme "Headspace", regional road shows to bring publishers, librarians and writers together, and regional promotions. This year publishers will provide libraries with access to 235 authors for library events.

Anna Baldwin, head of marketing at OUP and representative for the Children's Book Group of publishers, said: "This programme gives publishers access to library authorities across the board. It is not just about using one-off relationships that publishers have already developed with individual libraries, although there is no reason why those can't continue."

The strength of the programme lies in its "word of mouth" appeal, said Simon & Schuster head of marketing Elisa Offord. "To get our books into the hands of the kids in these groups (who we know already enjoy reading) and promote our titles in the regular newsletters and online is an exciting prospect. I'm hoping it will be a good launch pad for debut books and authors for example, and for author events in areas that we wouldn't usually reach."

Publishers will work with regional representatives from ASCEL (Association of Children's and Education Librarians) and with the Youth Libraries Group. Naomi Danquah has been appointed as Children's Reading Partners co-ordinator.

Blogging the BA Conference - Day Two

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