1. Government funded reading initiatives- to be delivered through libraries The DCMS and DCSF [Department for Children, Schools and Families], have provided funding to provide books to encourage reading with targeted groups, and for libraries to manage the initiatives:  Book Ahead – for under 5s [15,000 picture books]  Booked-up – for teenage boys  Boys into books – for boys aged 5-11

2. Book Ahead in Lancashire  The Government has requested that the books be loaned in sets of 20 to early years settings – together with positive messages about sharing books with under 5s.  It is hoped that settings will exchange these books at the library for a further collection when they have been read.  In Lancashire we are using the initiative to publicise childminder/nursery tickets and increase picture book issues

3. Book Ahead Timetable  It is planned to organise a ‘Book Ahead’ day at Woodlands on 15 th May where up to 300 settings could attend, choose 20 books and take away to share with their children immediately  All nurseries visiting libraries or the School Library Service mobile from May will be offered an Elmer nursery ticket and encouraged to choose 20 Book Ahead books to loan  Books will be loaned to rural nurseries in conjunction with the Rural project over the summer  Collections will be loaned to family centres in prisons

4. Book Ahead – staff involvement  Please support this initiative and positively promote storybooks and our nursery tickets to all nurseries and childminders  Book Ahead stock will be added to one central location initially. All Book Ahead books will be identified by a lemon date label.  On return of any of these books to your library, please change the location and add to your own branch stock. Thanks for your support!

5. Booked - Up  This promotion provides a free book gift for every boy in pupil referral units in Lancashire.  Lynn Fenton from the School Library Service is working closely with all secondary short schools in the county and will manage this initiative to ensure all eligible boys receive their book gift.  Lynn has selected a range of excellent books which she will distribute to the boys through her project to engage young people with books and reading.  Although this promotion is specifically targeted at an identified underachieving group, we have just been given funding from the School Standards team to buy books for girls in the referral units who also need all the encouragement we can give them to read

6. Boys into Books  Two major factors leading to this initiative being targeted at primary school boys. -Research has shown that many boys do not read for pleasure – especially beyond primary school- which can impact on literacy skills -Evidence that girls have ‘outperformed’ boys in every authority is also in the country over a number of years.  Again tight deadlines for the order of books and supporting publicity materials  Collections will be loaned to every primary school through the School Library Service wider reading loans and exchanged after one term

7.  The excellent shortlist for Book of the Year 2008 was launched on 4 th March.  We welcomed our new chairman for the judging panel - Adele Geras.  Adele writes for both young people and adults and reviews for The Guardian.  Her enthusiasm, literary knowledge, communication skills and humour ensured she did a superb job in preparing our young judges for the challenging task ahead  The panel meets 23 rd May to select the winning book.  The winning author will receive the award on 21 st June

8.  The Reading Rocks strapline complements Get it Loud in Libraries and the May gigs at Lancaster library are promoted alongside the shortlisted books. Look out for postcards with the challenge to ‘Rock out with a book today’ for the National Year of Reading [NYR] Publicity distributed to all libraries.  Can we urge more of you to read books from the list – you may be surprised at the quality of writing from both the new and established authors featured AND it will help your reading development work with young people who use your library  Make it your NYR challenge too to ‘Rock out with a book today’  Last year staff from many branches contacted me with evidence of engaging young people through discussion of book of the year books that they had read!

9. New School Library Service Mobile Library  Look out for the new mobile with its striking red and black livery which will start visiting schools from 10 th March  In June the mobile will attend a mobile meet at Aintree racecourse and also the Lytham Club Day parade

10. The Learning Place  There are now 14 designated Learning Places and at a meeting of the standardisation group in Haslingden it was agreed to extend the initiative to more libraries.  Although it was reported that some areas were failing to attract large numbers to sessions – there were numerous examples of excellent learning initiatives across the county  Please continue to promote Learning Places – the new pull-up banners have been a positive support in this regard  Standardisation meetings will continue to share good practice. If you have an example of learning activity in your library to share please email details to Diane Scarborough

11. Summer Reading Challenge  The theme for this year’s challenge is TEAM READ – with a sporting theme to tie in with the Olympics  Opportunity for children with visual impairment to participate with specifically produced materials  Once again we ask you to encourage more children and young people to take part – and especially encourage them to COMPLETE the challenge!

12. Services to 11-19 year olds Fulfilling their Potential  We are considering a project to set up a Youth Forum in Ingol Library to consult and advise on services to 11-19 year olds.  The Ingol model would serve as a blueprint for other libraries to truly demonstrate that we engage young people in the development of services that they want and need Youth Cultural Offer  Lancashire will be bidding to be one of the 10 authorities to take part in ‘Finding your talent’ projects around the Government’s cultural offer to include Libraries, Museums and Archives  If successful, the authority will share £25 million to implement