The 2008 National Year of Reading (NYR) was delivered by a consortium of partners led by the National Literacy Trust. The final evaluation report presents achievements of the campaign, which ran from January to December 2008 and aimed to change the nation’s attitudes to reading.
The report identifies successes and challenges and provides recommendations for sustaining the momentum generated by a very active and effective campaign.
The NYR was commissioned by the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF), with lead partner The Reading Agency, to run the NYR, to promote reading in the family and beyond and help to build a nation of readers. The campaign included a wide variety of key partners from the reading sector and developed a strategy designed to promote engagement across education, library, community, corporate and business sectors.
Elements of the campaign were targeted at specific groups, such as white working-class boys and families from socio-economic groups C2DE, identified as having most to benefit by the National Strategies team at the DSCF.
The campaign was judged to have been a success based on outcomes including: nearly 6,000 events registered on the website; more than 2.3 million new library members (with research suggesting the figure included 70% of C2DE children, an increase from 58% at the start of the Year); and the number of boys taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge rose by 23,000.