CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 77, July 2013
Contents
- Introduction
- 1. ‘Read Me a Book’, a promotion campaign aiming at building reading culture for children and young adults in the ‘2012 National Year of Reading’
- 2. Reading Promotion Project for the Children in Need
- 3. Reading Promotion for Young Adults
- 4. Development and Distribution of Reading Content for Multicultural Family
- 5. Support for Operation of Reading Class of Public Libraries in the Nation
Introduction
The National Library for Children and Young Adults makes every effort to play a role as a ‘Power Generator for Reading Culture’ by leading public libraries helping children and young adults who are the treasure of Korea’s future improve their potential creativity and imagination through reading and use them as a driving force for the nation’s sustainable growth.
< top page of the website of the National Library for Children and Young Adults >
This article introduces reading promotion activities implemented by the National Library for Children and Young Adults.
1. ‘Read Me a Book’, a promotion campaign aiming at building reading culture for children and young adults in the ‘2012 National Year of Reading’
The National Library for Children and Young Adults has carried ‘Read Me a Book’ campaign for ‘2012 National Year of Reading’ to develop reading habits and the potential of children and young adults by reading them books. Publishing and distributing of a guide book, supporting the ‘Read Me a Book’ program of public libraries, and inviting the public to an experience story contest are the main activities of the campaign.
The guide book of ‘Read Me a Book’ suggests practical strategies to raise reading habits of the public in daily life. It presents the importance and the method to read children books, reviews children’s level of reading ability based on the developmental stages, and offers parents information on how to help children read good books. The library published 35,000 copies of a printed guide book and distributed to public and school libraries and related institutions. The guide book is easily available on the website.
After distributing the guide book, the library provided public libraries with the lecture on how to utilize the book for their education programs. The lecture brought together 1,560 of parents, librarians, teachers and volunteers from 26 public libraries. The education on how to use the guide book did not end with one time lecture but became an independent education program for individual libraries. The library also held an essay contest for parents, librarians, and teachers etc., sharing their experiences and practices on using the guide book. Among submitted essays, 18 stories were selected and are scheduled to be published and distributed to reading-related institutions.
2. Reading Promotion Project for the Children in Need
2-1 ‘Reading with Libraries’ project
The project of ‘Reading with Libraries’ is an outreach service for institutions such as childcare centers, orphanages, children’s centers in poor neighborhoods and multicultural homes where there are many underprivileged children and no easy access to libraries. It provides various reading programs. The project has continued since 2007 in cooperation with public libraries in the nation.
In 2012, nation’s 135 public libraries have been selected to operate reading programs such as reading discussion, biblio-therapy, book art, NIE activities, oral narration of fairy tale, and library events including library tour, book reading by librarians, local cultural heritage exploration, one night stay in a library for approximately 2,700 unprivileged children.
Libraries participated in the project get support for the program management, purchase of the related books, and payment for instructors. Librarians visit the children in need and read them books as well as involve them in the various reading programs. After all programs finish, the children get books to own so that they can enjoy reading in their daily lives.
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2-2 ‘Circulating Library Books’ project
The ‘Circulating Library Books’ project has been conducted since 2008 to provide many books to children in rural and remote mountain areas with no much benefits of reading culture, and to develop their sound reading habits.
The project has offered 80 primary schools with only less than 150 students in total with about 11,000 books by categorizing them into 12 subjects- domestic books, English picture books, “Learn the World”- and packaging them into 50 books. Each school can borrow 150 books for 4 months twice a year and also the book are offered to reading culture promotion events such as meetings with authors.
In order to promote reading activities, the National Library for Children and Young Adults has developed a reference book for reading activity program with the package of books and been offering to the libraries and reviewing the effect of the project through questionnaires and surveys on the operational status of the project in each school.
With this program, the library has helped unprivileged children build a sound character by offering an opportunity to get familiar with books and reading culture, and it has also created an environment to enjoy reading books.
< Children taking part in the Circulating Library Books’ project >
3. Reading Promotion for Young Adults
Even primary school children who read many books have started to read less due to burden on study. In addition, library service for young adults is not sufficient compared to service for children. Thus, the National Library for Children and Young Adults has made efforts to promote reading by the youth.
3-1 Library Occupation by 1318 Bookworms
The <Library Occupation by 1318 Bookworms> is a program for the youth aged between 13 and 18 which has been implemented since 2007 in cooperation with 40 middle and high schools in 16 cities and provinces in the nation. It encourages voluntary participation of young adults in the program to establish sound reading environment for them.
Every year, the selected 40 middle and high schools hold various reading-related events such as exhibitions, lectures by authors, quiz, discussion and journey to literature in order to increase interests in reading of students, teachers and parents, and help them understand each other through reading. Students in the selected schools play leading roles in developing the list of recommended books for the youth and operating reading programs, cultural experience activities, and the online reading community.
3-2 Reading Column for the Youth
The website of the reading column for the youth has provided 20 columns annually since December 23, 2006, to promote reading by young adults.
It posts columns written by prominent figures, commentators, writers, columnists and professors, and operates the E-card service with which readers can forward columns to their friends or family via email. It also holds a variety of reading-related events to attract interests from the youth.
3-3 Humanities Story and the Humanities Picnic for the Youth
The <Humanities Story for the Youth>, started from 2011, aims to increase the use of library of young adults by offering easy and interesting lectures on the humanities. From April to December in 2012, the lectures were provided 9 times with the participation of 1,295 young people. The <Humanities Picnic for the Youth> is a program in which the youth goes on a picnic with a writer or an expert after reading a book, and becomes acquainted with the humanities in a natural environment in a cozy and enjoyable manner. From May to November in 2012, the program was implemented 14 times. The two programs all showed high participation rates.
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4. Development and Distribution of Reading Content for Multicultural Family
We are living in society with cultural diversity. If we do not know diverse culture, we cannot understand and communicate with people with different culture. Thanks to a rapid growth of the number of marriage migrants, Korean society has become multicultural, and the use of library by marriage migrants’ children has significantly increased. Under the circumstance, in an attempt to promote reading by multicultural family, Korean picture books have been translated into 5 languages including English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and Mongolian, developed as flash animations and distributed in a form of DVD to public libraries and multicultural family support centers nationwide since 2009. They are also available on http://www.nlcy.go.kr.
Public libraries in the nation actively utilize those contents in their various cultural programs like a Korean language class and a reading club for multicultural family.
5. Support for Operation of Reading Class of Public Libraries in the Nation
The ‘Reading Class of Public Libraries' is the representative reading promotion program for children and young adults, aiming to raise awareness on joy and importance of reading, encourage them to have good reading habits and make full use of a library providing a variety of learning experiences. For successful operation of the program, the National Library for Children and Young Adults has offered various supports.
First, it holds reading class workshops twice a year for the persons in charge in order to improve expertise of children librarians, and give awards from the minister to the librarian, the teacher and the relevant expert who have shown excellent leadership, and awards from the director of the National Library for Children and Young Adults to the students who have completed the program with good performance. Second, it develops and distributes the "reading class manual", and publishes annually a material book including operation cases on site so that the persons in charge can utilize information on the class.
Thanks to these efforts, the number of participants in the reading class has grown every year. The master plan for reading culture promotion targets to improve happiness of the public and strengthen national knowledge competitiveness through promotion of reading, and the reading culture promotion act says ‘reading is a fundamental right of the people.’
On top of this, the National Library for Children and Young Adults will make efforts to establish advanced ‘reading’ culture where children and young adults can enhance their imagination and creativity, and play a role as a communication channel connecting books and readers.
Copyright (C) 2013 National Library of Korea
