Opening the Book Furniture was set up as Opening the Book Promotions in 2001 by Rachel Van Riel and Helen Thomas, after they worked together on the first national reader-centred promotions in public libraries – Open Ticket, created to showcase literature from round the world for Branching Out and The Mind’s Eye, a promotion of narrative non-fiction for the Public Libraries Group. Open Ticket was an instant hit with hundreds of library service points from across the UK participating. The Mind’s Eye followed a year later, included all Scottish library services and showed that reader-centred approaches could be applied to non-fiction just as much as fiction.

Following this success, Helen and Rachel set up the new company to meet the specific needs of public libraries by bringing together the best of reader development and retail approaches. Rachel is Director of Opening the Book, the company she founded in 1991 to work with readers and libraries. Helen is Director of Book Communications, a consultancy working within the library and literature sectors, and also brought a wealth of retail knowledge from twenty years in bookselling, where she was Head of Marketing for Dillons Bookstores.

Opening the Book Furniture established itself in Birmingham, at the Custard Factory – now an arts complex but formally Birds Custard powder factory. During the first years, the company offered a mix of furniture units (some of which are still best-sellers like the Table Unit) and high-quality reader-centred graphics and promotions. The company has grown substantially since 2001 but our key philosophy remains the same – to enable libraries and schools to make the discovery of books attractive and exciting.

Today we offer a mix of wooden and acrylic furniture units and our customers include over 90% of the UK’s public library authorities, and many schools, nurseries and colleges. We distribute across the UK as well as to many businesses overseas. More recently we have entered into a partnership with Eurobib, a Nordic furniture manufacturer and we are the sole UK distributor for their products.

Opening the Book Furniture is now based in Birmingham’s historic Jewellery Quarter with a showroom which customers are welcome to visit.