Six Book success for borough's library service

Rochdale Borough Library Service has been celebrating after receiving a bronze award from the Reading Agency, a charity which aims to increase reading confidence amongst the UK’s population.

The bronze certificate was awarded after the library service successfully supported 85 people through the Six Book Challenge, a scheme which encourages participants to pick six reads, whilst recording them in a diary. The reading can be from different sources including newspapers, poems, books and magazines.

Linda Fisher, Acting Chief Executive:

“This is fantastic news, I had the pleasure of meeting some of the Rochdale participants and I was impressed by their dedication and enthusiasm.

“Reading is an essential skill and any efforts to improve reading confidence must be encouraged and widely promoted. I would like to thank both the library service and the Six Book Challenge participants for all their hard work.

“By working in partnership with the Family Learning Service, with Rochdale Mind and with the Council’s Skills and Employment team, the library service has helped encourage more people to read for pleasure, increased their confidence and, ultimately improved their life skills.

“I look forward to hearing of the success of next year’s participants.”

In 2013 the Six Book Challenge had more than 35,000 participants throughout the country. It encourages people to get into reading for pleasure, often for the first time, in order to build their reading confidence and literacy skills.

On International Literacy Day, 8 September, the Reading Agency announced its ambition to reach 50,000 participants in 2015, as part of its continued drive to improve adult literacy in the UK, where one in six currently struggles to read.

Its goal was announced at a special reception at 11 Downing Street hosted by Frances Osborne, wife of the Chancellor, with authors, publishers, policymakers, other charities and representatives from the numerous organisations which take part in the challenge.

The announcement follows the publishing of a government report by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, which endorses the challenge as a valuable tool to help tackle the UK’s continuing skills deficit.

Rochdale Borough Libraries has been supporting initiatives like the Six Book Challenge for several years. You can find out more by visiting www.rochdale.gov.uk/libraries or www.facebook.com/RochdaleBoroughLibraries