Лора Каспари Хохманн,
атташе по культуре посольства США в Польше (США)

Today I?m going to talk about One Book ? One Community reading programs in America. This is a concept in which communities strive for civic unity by reading the same book.
The community-wide reading program concept originated in 1998 when the Washington Center for the Book in Seattle hosted author Russell Banks for four days of programs and discussions about his novel, The Sweet Hereafter.

Since then, communities across America (and increasingly across the world) have adopted the concept of people coming together by reading and discussing a common book.

The most successful programs have involved books that have compelling issues, characters, and themes which encourage discussion.

Many communities have selected books of regional significance or by local authors because they have the potential to elicit an immediate connection with the public.

For instance, Austin, Texas chose Bless Me Ultima, a book readily available in both Spanish and English that tells a story that resonated with the city?s multicultural population.

Many cities have selected classic novels. By going this route, many people read books they haven?t read since high school and others pick them up for the first time.

The advantage of classics is that they?re widely available and there is ample scholarship on them. The disadvantage is that authors are often unavailable or deceased.

On the other hand, many communities have selected contemporary titles that are challenging and deal with controversial issues.

One advantage of selecting contemporary titles is that the authors are more likely to be alive and available for programming.

I?d like to take a minute and show you a public service announcement that was aired on television for the Burbank Reads program. They selected a book that would appeal to a broad audience: Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World?s Worst Dog

Up to this point, everything I?ve discussed relates to locally funded community reading initiatives.

However, in 2006 the US federal government began to provide funding for community-wide reading programs through the National Endowment of the Arts. They created a program entitled The Big Read in an attempt to revitalize the role of reading in American public culture.

The NEA?s creation of the Big Read is a result of a report entitled Reading at Risk that identified a critical decline in literary reading among American adults.

Literary reading is defined as novels, short stories, poetry, or drama in any format including the Internet.

Key findings of the report include:

• Less than half (47%) of the American adult population now reads literature
• Literary reading is declining at all education levels and among all age groups
• Just over one-third of American men (38%) read literature
• More than half of all American women (55%) still read literature, but that rate has declined by 8 percentage points since 1982.
• Literary readers are more likely to perform volunteer and charity work (43%) than are nonliterary readers (17%)

The Big Read was designed to help build a nation of active readers and thinkers. The purpose is pleasure and the goal is to bring the transformative power of literature into the lives of all citizens and to unite communities through reading.

The Big Read is expanding to 200 American communities this year.

The NEA has received overwhelmingly favorable comments from participating libraries, saying things like The Big Read has «brought the community together»

On a more tangible level, the NEA has received exciting reports of results, such as in Peoria, Illinois, where librarians attributed the passage of a library referendum (by 72%) in large part to an election-year Big Read program.

On an international level, in 2006 Chicago and Moscow created an Internet book club to discuss Aleksander Solzhenitsyn?s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

The Chicago Public Library and the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow partnered to form an international book club to discuss the novel.

2,000 copies of the book were available at the 79 branches of the Chicago Public Library and area bookstores. The library also purchased copies of the book in Russian and Polish and audio books on CD.
Readers in both cities participated in an online discussion that was moderated by librarians.

Students in Chicago and Moscow discussed the book via email and participated in a videoconference.

This October the All-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature is partnering with the NEA and the US Embassy in Moscow to bring Harper Lee?s To Kill a Mockingbird to the communities in Ivanovo and Saratov, Russia.

In early 2008 American communities will have the opportunity to read Leo Tolstoy?s The Death of Ivan Ilych and participate in cultural exchange activities with Russia, in coordination with the NEA.

I?ve provided you all with a handout on how to set up your own community wide reading program, as well as links to some websites with additional res.

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