1992 Reading the Future Conference

In 1991 the Arts Council decided that rather than put its resources into funding one-off projects, a major conference was needed to raise the status of literature in public libraries.  Rachel Van Riel was commissioned to create and manage all aspects of the conference, working to Antonia Byatt, Literature Officer.   Rachel introduced a parallel agenda of raising the status of public libraries in the literary world.

The conference was described as a ‘sea-change’ by many chief librarians who attended.  It brought together publishers, booksellers, librarians and arts administrators under the literature banner for the first time.  The speech from A S Byatt on the importance of reading (published on the same day in The Guardian) has never been forgotten by those who heard it.  Its passionate, precise and very human analysis of what reading is and does for us has not been bettered since.

Three specific actions came out of the Reading the Future conference:

  • a grant-aid budget, the Library Fund,  to support literature projects in libraries
  • joint funding with the Library Association to develop training for librarians in imaginative literature.
  • the possibility of a promotions agency linking libraries and publishers (this one took longer to realise but did happen, see The Reading Partnership and The Reading Agency.