Oldham's Favourite Read
Oldham's Favourite Read Campaign started in January for a six week promotion within libraries to inspire people to read and vote for their favourite book. We worked in partnership with Oldham Advertiser and our Marketing Department to reach out to people who weren't already library users.
(Photo: World Book Night)
We had six different genre book lists which were: Contemporary, Crime, Classic, Sci- fi/Fantasy, Romance and Thriller and incorporated a Children's selection too. The campaign started with well known people from Oldham reviewing our top book from each genre. The reviewers included Footballers, Councillors, Rugby Players and Heads of Services. We worked hand in hand with the Oldham Advertiser, which ran a page spread every week, about the library service, reviews, schools, book clubs and how to get involved in Oldham's Favourite Read.
As part of the campaign we ran a Book Swap shop, at which members of the public could pop into the shop and swap their favourite book for another one. Over 400 books were donated and over 150 books were swapped on the day.
(Photo: Young people walking with books - Book Crossing)
We launched a Book Crossing on Valentine's Day across Oldham with over 100 books in a 100 locations. The books where left on park benches, galleries, train stations and bowling greens to name a few. (We worked in partnership with Oldham Sixth Form College to get the books out to all the different locations and focus on younger meeting places too).
As the campaign grew, celebrities such as John Henshaw, Clint Boon and players from Oldham Latics helped support the campaign by having their photographs taken with their favourite book, giving the campaign a higher profile.
(Photo: Players from Oldham Latics)
To culminate Oldham's Favourite Reads, we opened voting to the public to vote for their favourite book in the last week. We organised an event on the 5th March in conjunction with World Book Night to celebrate reading. At this we had a quiz, a debate and the unveiling of Oldham's Favourite by the Editor of the Advertiser, Clare Mooney. The books which were Oldham's Favourite Read were Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and Harry Potter the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling. The evening and the campaign was a huge success and hopefully we'll be able to run a similar campaign again next year.
Librarians in the North West have pioneered partnership working to encourage new readers into libraries. Time To Read is a partnership of librarians engaged in reader development activity in public library authorities in the North West Region. All 23 public library authorities in the region currently support Time To Read.