National Year of Reading Mission statement
The more you read, the more you know. Reading helps you connect, think, judge, decide and contribute. If you read, everything is within your reach.
Reading and effective literacy are fundamental to social cohesion, individual opportunity and personal success. For the 2008 National Year of Reading to succeed we need to have conveyed the significance and positive impact of literacy and reading on the success of the country, and the opportunities it provides for active citizenship for everyone.
We need to reach hesitant readers, reluctant readers, those who do not consider themselves readers (but who are!), and those who are in a position to influence someone’s future reading potential - and make a compelling case to them all for greater engagement with reading.
This means reaching and engaging every parent and carer, as well as extended family members, in order to promote the central role of the family and the home environment, as well as the impact of education, on any child’s reading life and future potential. We will also need to engage CEO’s nationwide and encourage them to support reading and literacy development within and outside of the workplace.
The 2008 National Year of Reading is not just about books, but is a celebration of words in every form and through every possible media. We are at a cultural crunchpoint – at a moment when we need to embrace whole new networks of reading through digital media, and at the same time celebrate everything that is relevant about traditional forms of reading and access to reading.
The 2008 National Year of Reading will also showcase artistic production – ideally every variety of spoken, sung and written words – and the role of the artist in expressing the capacity of words to move us, to change lives, to divert and delight us. Artists will be essential in our drive to extend the impact of the Year beyond ‘conventional’ and established audiences for reading.
Most of all the 2008 National Year of Reading is about the power of words and reading and the ideas they can illuminate - it will particularly focus on the fundamental founding principle behind our network of public libraries; ideas available for free, to everyone, offering reading as a tool of personal emancipation, and an expression of a democratic society.