1996 Training as trainers for librarians and literature workers

Anne Downes, the Literature Officer at North West Arts, knew at first-hand both the potential and the frustrations for literature workers attached to libraries from her experience at Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre.  She also knew that more training was needed than Opening the Book could supply. 

North West Arts approached Opening the Book to provide an intensive course to train key individuals to become reader development activists within their own authorities and across the region.  The selected participants included both librarians and literature workers and a secondary agenda was to improve understanding and working relationships between the two areas of practice.

Training the Trainers succeeded in creating a new group of reader development leaders.  It also established Time to Read, a regional network for reading promotion in the north west, which went on to become the strongest regional network in the UK and the first with its own full-time Co-ordinator.  See www.time-to-read.co.uk