“All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.” – John Ruskin

8th April 2008

By now, you may have started to see this logo popping up in places like libraries, bookshops and schools.

What does it all mean?

The National Year of Reading (NYR) is a once-per-decade event and was begun by the then Department for Education and Employment (now the Department for Children Schools and Families) in 1998. The aim was to promote reading throughout all sections of society and was delivered – like this year’s NYR – by the National Literacy Trust

The transformation from the reading world of 1998 and 2008 has been dramatic: in 1998 we didn’t have blogs; the internet was still relatively in its infancy; e-mail was considered new-fangled and who would have imagined there would be people developing RSIs from over-texting

Reading is something we do more now than ever, often without thinking about it: anybody accessing Facebook/Myspace has to read, as does the textaholic.

The NYR is a broad church and hopes to encourage all types of reading and all types of reader - from the individual who only reads the sports pages, to the individual who reads only Manga, to the person who feels that nothing less than poring over the classics by candlelight can be counted as serious reading (perhaps it is time for another confession…).

Each month from April will have a theme related to a different aspect of reading. April’s theme is Read All About It – read anything and everything, anywhere and everywhere. I suppose that covers all bases!

The library service will be linking promotions and activities to these themes, so keep your eyes peeled for what we have in store: there may even be something to satisfy our manga, sport and classics fans!

David H.