Resources
Blog Posts

Amazon’s customer reviews and suggestions are widely used and can be quite helpful if taken in balance. However, because of the way people often make book purchases, the adjacencies (people…

"Mechanical books should look like ordinary books. Their success is to be measured by the ingenuity with which their bookish format conceals unbookish characteristics." - Iona and Peter Opie

Readers often say that they love the scent of old books. "A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness”…

Libraries are the place where ideas begin. Many of the best ideas, artistic leaps, inventions and breakthroughs have been inspired by the contents of public libraries and yet, like many…

Library book trolleys - book carts in the US – come in a variety of styles but the majority do one thing but nothing much else. Great for moving a…
Images of Reading

Posing with a book gives individuals a studious air but photographers also kept books handy as a means steadying the sitter. Exposure time was much longer with early cameras and…

Holding an open book enables an embracing composition of mother and child; the mother can also hold the child steady and prevent wriggling. As cameras got smaller and faster, these…

Fifteenth- century paintings by Hans Memling and Jan Van Eyck take religious subjects and use formal compositions but there’s an unexpected touch of realism, typical of the Renaissance. The Christ…

Marking all the volumes in your personal library with an Ex libris ownership stamp - from the library of [add your name] - is now a thing of the past.…
Audience Development

The literature world concentrates mainly on writing and publishing. This is true of both the commercial sector and the arts funding sector. Opening the Book's unique contribution has been to…

Reading is something we do by ourselves in private. There are more readers than there are practitioners of any other art form but because reading is largely an individual and…

What makes us think that the reader of romances is stuck in a dream world, an escapist, probably deeply unhappy with no social life? What makes reading a non-fiction serious…

Reader development takes an inclusive approach to whatever people are reading. We don’t need to make value judgments about the 'quality' of books as we shift the focus to the…

Think about all the barriers that we have to overcome every time we pick a new book to read. Is this the kind of book I usually like? Is it…

Starting with the reader and the experience of reading, rather than the author or the book, is the major change that Opening the Book has introduced into promotion.

One of the biggest barriers to finding what you want is the sheer number of choices that exist. If you walk into a library, you see crowded ranks of spine-on…

When we talk of resources we think of books, buildings, staff. But the biggest resource you have is your readers. They are plentiful in number, variety and imagination.

Our research has shown that approximately half of the people coming into a library are looking for a specific title or author. The other half want to browse what's there…

In the retail sector, companies know a great deal about their customers and, when planning marketing strategies, they break their market down into very specific segments. This helps them to…
Presentations & website links
Presentations from a wide range of countries and events by Rachel Van Riel of Opening the Book
Click on the links below for reports from a small selection of Rachel’s presentations from around the world.
Reader-centred Glossary
What does it really mean? We unpack some key concepts used in reader-centred work
Library project archive
In twenty years of reader-centred practice there are many projects which are no longer running but are still worth mining for ideas and inspiration. Explore some of the most successful reader-centred projects in the UK below.

Visually impaired readers have the same difficulties choosing what to read next as everyone else except that their choice is more limited by what’s available. Here’s an example of how to open up reading choices by grouping titles together round reading needs or experience and then writing about them in a tempting way. The project created reader-centred taster compilations in large print, Braille and audio formats to give visually impaired readers a new way to choose what to read. Each compilation brought together an intriguing mix of titles with introductory text and reader comments. The large print booklists stand as a good example of how to approach a reader-centred promotion and how to write about books in a reader-centred way.

A Bookchain can most simply be described as a reading group that doesn’t meet. It is an ideal option for readers who want to share their reading experiences but don’t have the time or inclination for a regular face-to-face group. Readers are grouped together – three or four people per bookchain is typical – and they choose, write about and pass on books to other member of their chain in a process managed by the library staff.

Blind Date
Blind Date was part of a web project called What are you up to? It was run in partnership between East Midland Reader and Development Project (EMRALD) and Opening the Book between 2000 and 2003 and was targeted at readers aged 16-25. An editorial group of one member of staff from each of the nine participating authorities worked with an Opening the Book site manager to plan site content and development. The resulting website was ground breaking in style and content and linked online and offline services.

Give me a break
Give me a break was the first dual language Welsh/English site for readers. It enables readers to choose their books according to the kind of break they are looking for – for example: a break from the kids (rhag y plant) or a break from stress (rhag y bwrlwm). The target audience for this site is readers in their 20s and 30s, taking on board the specific needs of this age group: first job/unemployment; first baby/unattached; experimenting with first experience with extreme sports and travel/bogged down with domesticity and work boredom. The website was complemented by posters and book displays in libraries – connecting online and offline activity.

Ønskebok
The Ønskebok website is the largest international project Opening the Book has undertaken.

Reader2Reader
Opening the Book won the contract to deliver the Read part of the People's Network service.

Scottish Readers
Opening the Book was contracted by SLIC/CILIPS to deliver a training programme involving all 32 Scottish Library authorities

Stock Quality Health Check
The Stock Quality Health Check was developed for the Audit Commission, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England.

Branching Out
Branching Out was a national reader development project which ran from 1998 to 2006.

Estyn Allan
A three-year project for readers that unites every library service in Wales