From Activating Books to Activating Reading: Professional Ideas and Practical Models from the Neighborhood Library Project to Strengthen Reading Promotion

Abstract

[Purpose/Significance] China's national reading work has entered a new stage of high-quality development from "launching" to "deepening". Public libraries play an important role in national reading. How to further broaden the way of reading promotion, carry out innovative forms of activity, develop towards professionalization, and improve effectiveness is an important issue for the reading promotion work of public libraries in the new era. The Neighborhood Library Project cooperates with families to build a family library, provides reading services and activities to the outside world, and creates a new paradigm for national reading promotion from activating families, activating books to activating reading. It won the first prize of the International Marketing Award of the International Federation of Library Associations and Societies in 2020. The new concepts, professional ideas and successful experiences of reading promotion can be used as a reference by public libraries. [Method/Process] Adopting the case analysis method and taking the the Neighborhood Library Project as the research object, the design concept of the project's reading promotion pathway is analyzed from the perspective of family members, family books, and family libraries. The project believes that families are an important social force for national reading promotion, family books are important resources, and family libraries are an important form. The Neighborhood Library Project explores how to activate families to absorb social and family forces to participate in cultural governance, how to activate books to build a "library + family" reading system, and how to activate reading to make reading promotion activities flourish. This paper discusses the professional support of the Neighborhood Library Project for reading promotion from the aspects of providing powerful resource service guarantee, improving the system construction, building a technical platform, and carrying out accurate marketing promotion. [Results/Conclusions] Four suggestions are proposed for reading promotion: the integration of public and private resources expands the breadth of national reading, promotes the friendly interaction between top-level design and reading practice, enables the intelligent management of reading promotion with new technology, and increases the impact of reading promotion through diversified marketing promotion activities. In the future, the effectiveness of reading promotion can be evaluated from the perspective of public libraries' resource input, neighborhood libraries' family participation and reader satisfaction.

Keywords

• reading promotion|public library|neighborhood library|national reading