volunteer led, and levels of autonomy over social media and mar- keting around NYR. The committee said these factors will deter- mine whether NYR will be led by library staff or a local authority’s communications team.
“This may affect how much of the material provided by Reading Agency and National Literacy Trust is actually being used effec- tively and reaching the target audiences.”
Where services have less autonomy library staff could face more challenges like “having restricted access to marketing tools or social media platforms and being reliant on Comms team time to focus on NYR whilst dealing with other projects”. The committee said that library staff will understand the philoso- phy, be aware of the stats and attend the NLT messaging webinars, adding that “there can be time delays in getting promotional stuff out and it’s much quicker to do in house”.
National connections The PMLG committee said libraries are also a network in their own right: “Libraries are not working alone, we are part of a national network, working collaboratively with schools, prisons, early years, and tackling a decline in reading and literacy that negatively affects society as a whole.” It said the NYR campaign’s prison and schools offers help build connections with other libraries adding that open webinars run by NLT for early years and schools had been informative for public library staff: “We can then see what their focus will be through the year and how ours might fit in with theirs.” The committee said: “Having a common goal and project to work on with our local schools may strengthen our ties,” adding there has already been reports of a pick-up in schools asking to visit libraries.
Local evidence
Asked how easy it will be to make the case locally – whether local data is easy to find and use – the PMLG committee said: “There is local data available around literacy levels and social mobility that can be used. We have access to local data on child poverty, educa- tional attainment, unemployment, age of population.” However, it pointed out that turning data into a story depends on “how much time staff have to analyse and focus on this. There are tools we can use too such as the Government’s Social Mobility Commission/State of the Nation where you can search for your borough.”
However, it can be “harder to drill down and reach local stats (because) the reports summarise findings rather than provide easy to use searchable stats for your area”.
The committee said it used NYR data to increase the interest of their authorities in the library service through internal comms like staff forums and to other council departments saying “often our own council staff are surprised at the range of what libraries do”.
Go all in
NYR comes into direct contact with the community through its ‘Go all in’ project which approaches potential readers through their existing passions. The committee said: “Generally there is a positive approach to the Go All In message. It is something we already do, like encouraging children in class visits to find a book that they are interested in and providing space for them to explore and choose books autonomously.”
It said the Go All In message “sharpens the focus of what we are about for staff and customers alike and validates and emphasises the importance of public libraries” and opens new approaches, which shed light on reasons “why people don’t read and who isn’t reading so we can do some targeted programmes around these”.
February-March 2026
National Year of Reading projects
Asked if public libraries already had NYR projects up and running the PMLG committee said: “We know of authorities that have lifted and shifted large projects to fit under this year’s banner such as a year-long green project to raise the awareness of the decline of pollinators and their habitats and this year may give projects like that an extra highlight.
“A lot of us are talking about starting or continuing with an adult reading challenge this year and of course, focussing on the age ranges that the NLT have asked us to target such as early years. One borough will be focussing on shared reading with a One Million Words campaign, explaining the importance of reading with your child from birth.” World Book Night, Quick Read giveaways, pop-up Book Clubs and ‘Read-ins’ were all mentioned too.
Evaluation
There are some areas of uncertainty and questions about eval- uation and funding. One is around the detail about evaluation processes before NYR projects start. Another was over buy-in from authorities to evaluate. The concern is that where councils have funded their own projects internally there may not be so much buy-in to an external NYR evaluation model if local funding is needed to do this. One solution the committee suggested is a QR code for the public to give direct evaluation back to NLT. Questions about funding were also raised: “We haven’t heard of any definite funding as yet, so it is hard to plan for new initiatives.” It said pots of money to bid for had been mentioned, but added that “staff are stretched and there is little time to spend on bids… It would be helpful if public libraries were trusted with secure pots of money so they didn’t have to spend time bidding and instead could just get on and act on the ideas. We are experienced with planning, managing and delivering projects with small and extremely large funds and have had years of magically producing fantastic activities and events often out of limited resources.” IP
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