1992-1994 Growth of training in fiction promotion and selection

Following the success of the first library staff training in 1991  Opening the Book offered training in fiction promotion and selection to library authorities on a commercial basis without subsidy.  This was the first time training in these areas was available to library professionals.  Library qualifications did not include any training in promoting literature to adults and there was no in-service training available.  There was no formal training in book selection either, more a sit-by-Nellie approach where you learned on the job.  Inevitably this led to a lack of articulated policy with selection driven by custom and practice. 

                     

First publicity leaflet advertising Opening the Book workshops.

Heads of service and training officers began to realise the size of the skills and confidence training gap in the profession and from 1992 authorities began to buy in Opening the Book training to remedy this.  The training grew by word-of-mouth recommendation as Opening the Book training days always delivered more than the immediate agenda in terms of motivating and empowering library staff.  This was a time of budget cuts in the public sector and many library authorities suffered from low morale.  Opening the Book training reconnected library staff with the reasons they were in libraries in the first place in a shared rediscovery and celebration of the importance and relevance of books.  

The workshops consciously worked across the vertical and horizontal barriers of library organisation to achieve a shared sense of purpose.  Libraries were structured vertically with a sharply felt sense of separation between professional and non-professional staff and task distinction between management and service delivery.  Opening the Book training asked that a mixed staff attended from senior managers to frontline staff who deal with readers.  It also brought together staff from different sections – bibliographical services, central libraries, small branches, housebound services, mobiles, schools, prisons, hospitals – in what many staff testified was the best team-building training they had ever had.

Examples of training: 


                                                  
                                 Fiction Matters Seminar, Gwent, 1993


Fiction selection training, Dorset, 1993  Click here to view.

Literature promotion training, Gloucestershire, 1993. Click here for programme   This workshop produced the Dare You? promotion which invented the surprise book-in-a-bag.  See article by Pat Bidston 'Dare you create your own book promotion?' In
Public Library Journal, Vol 10, No 1, 1995

Residential fiction promotion course, Gloucestershire, 1994.  Participants included senior managers, librarians, library assistants and mobile van drivers.
Creative reading training, Bradford, 1994 

The first courses were called Creative Reading, Fiction Promotion and Issues in Selection.  From 1995, when Olive Fowler joined Opening the Book, the training programme expanded and additional trainers were recruited and trained to support this larger market.  Opening the Book's basic reader development course constantly evolved to meet the needs of the moment but the core principles remained the same.  In 1997 it was called Introduction to Reader-centred Promotion, in 1998 it became Putting Readers First and in 2002 it changed to The Reader-friendly Library.  There are not many library staff active in reader development in the UK who have not attended at least one of these incarnations.


Selection Training,  East Sussex, 1994 


Creative reading approaches applied in school library work, Hertfordshire


Explanation of requirement for staff to read books in advance of training.