by: Terry
I attended the second of three summits in January 2011, hoping to make a contribution as a member of a volunteer working group comprised of librarians and academics exploring reading in Canada.
The purpose of the National Reading Campaign is to develop a Canadian national reading strategy, which will foster a reading culture in communities across the country. Three successive summits are working to identify key strategies and build coalitions to cultivate policy development and implementation. The two day summits, in both official languages, focus on the needs of Canadians in all regions, including the First Nations, immigrant communities, and youth. The summit reports are now available online.
Why develop a national reading strategy?
- to reflect the value of reading as a tool for democracy and civic engagement
- to enable Canadians to learn about themselves
- as a means to enable individuals to engage in a higher capacity in the economic life of Canada
- as a vehicle for joy and personal /intellectual enrichment
- to create a national framework -institutions involved in reading in Canada, libraries and schools, are municipal or provincially organized, to unify piecemeal approach
- to meet best practices in other countries
This Teen and Post Secondary Working Group, met by conference call over the year and used Google Docs as a platform to assemble briefs and submissions to the working paper that focused on readers in this target group. Best practices, best partners and ideas for the future were tabulated and backgrounders posted online. I submitted a brief on Teen Boys and Reading.
Next Steps
Build consensus, keep working and look forward to Vancouver Summit next year.
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