Developing young readers : extending the reading experience

The National Year of Reading, creative partnerships with business, the arts, other local authority departments and the community - combined with the profession's recognition of their own skills and abilities in the field of reader development - have brought libraries into the front-line as providers of creative reading experiemces for children and young people.This text explores how far reader development work has become embedded in public library services for children and young people: from reading strategies and initiatives for pre-school age children up to working with teenagers, and the links with family literacy and learning and study support.

It also examines how libraries relate and participate in the government's thinking for raising literacy standards and lifelong learning.Written in an accessible style, this text looks at progress so far by examining examples of good practice and strategies that work to investigate how library services can best sustain reader development initiatives for young people.

It should be useful both to heads of service and those with strategic responsibility for planning services for young readers and to those responsible for implementing these strategies.