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	Contact Us

Donna McDowell
0406 575 321

Sue McKerracher
0404 456 749

The Library Agency
GPO Box 1551
Melbourne VIC 3001

The National Year of Reading starts here

A big thanks to the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for making the National Year of Reading 2012 a partner in this year's Adult Learners' Week, from 1-8 September, 2011.

We have been commissioned, with partners the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and Writing Australia, to run a short story writing competition entitled "It's never too late ... to learn to read". We're also supported by the Northern Territory Writers' Centre, Queensland Writers' Centre and Writing WA. You can find out all about it on our website.

Entries from both published and unpublished Australian writers are welcomed and the closing date for submissions is Friday 5 August.

Build your own wall

Simon Warrender, founder of the Melbourne Prize Trust, came up with a brilliant idea which we've adopted as our launch event for 14 February 2012. He suggested we create National Year of Reading walls in libraries and other buildings around the country.

We were already going to create some quality branding materials (decals, posters and so on), for the National Year of Reading itself, and for the national programs, including One Country Reading and The Reading Hour, so these will help keep the walls fresh.

Of course, the exciting thing about the walls is that they will enable people to post their own messages about reading – favourite books, authors, quotes – and it doesn't have to be a physical wall, you could (as well as, or instead) create an online noticeboard.

We'll let you know as this idea develops – and we'd love to hear your ideas. Post on our Facebook wall or email info@thelibraryagency.org.au.

The Wiggles help spread the message

If you haven't already seen the Wiggles' videos on the ALIA website, please go online and take a look. Thanks so much to Sam, Murray, Jeff and Anthony for helping to make Australia a reading nation.

Come along if you can

On Wednesday 8 June Libmark, the Public Libraries Victoria Network special interest group, has organised a National Year of Reading half-day seminar at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. Patron William McInnes is the guest speaker. Tickets, including lunch are $66. Book your place online by Friday 3 June.

Do you have space for an ad?

The latest resource to go up on our wiki is a National Year of Reading 2012 A4 advertisement.  Please feel free to use this anywhere you can find a space.

Facebook and Twitter

Just a quick thank you to everyone who’s signed up to our Facebook and Twitter sites. We’ve more than 1,000 followers on Facebook and over 400 on Twitter – and that’s before we’ve gone public. With a really sizeable community already behind it, the National Year of Reading is ready to make a big impact. And we're fired up for our first major outing...

September launch

We’re planning to go public with the National Year of Reading during Adult Learners’ Week (1-8 September, 2011). The wonderful guys at Flip Creative are working on a big revamp for our website, to make it more consumer-facing, rather than focusing on reading professionals as we have been up until now. We’re also putting together a calendar of events for 2012. Even if you haven’t finalised the dates, we’d love to hear what you’re planning for the National Year of Reading so we can start to build up the bigger picture of who’s doing what. Please send a ‘heads up’ to info@thelibraryagency.org.au.

We'd love to hear from you

National Year of Reading project team, working on behalf of the founder partners: Donna McDowell – donna@thelibraryagency.org.au 0406 575 321 – and Sue McKerracher – sue@thelibraryagency.org.au 0404 456 749.

If you have any questions please drop us a line or call us. The next newsletter will be out at the end of June, so let us know if there's a story you would like us to include. If you have had this e-newsletter forwarded to you, and would like to receive future issues, just add your details to the mailing list on our website.