King County Wows Again

So I'm scanning through the finalists for the PR News finalists and there they were, King County Library System - Take Time to Read. Will that library ever stop being fantastic? Our friend Marsha Iverson is a PR Specialist over there and we can't say enough good things about her, but she is surrounded by a talented and dedicated team.

According to the news release, "the coveted Platinum PR Awards set the industry benchmark for excellence across all areas of PR. Celebrate the industry's best—those who took chances, made tremendous strides and understand the power of public relations. This must-attend industry event will honor the top PR campaigns of the year, the smartest communications initiatives and the people behind them."

Have we talked about the campaign yet? The KCLS Take Time to Read campaign is a three-year project featuring innovative ways to promote reading as a community value. They installed  outdoor community galleries of book art and audio narrative as an innovative way for the public to interact and engage with books and reading in a surprising, fun way. Book covers and audio narration, yes! I can imagine they'll be connecting QR codes to this project if they haven't already.


I love it because its bringing us back to our brand, reading. It's helping people remember why it's important to take the time to read. And its providing some fun motivation to help people get back to what they love.  Read this copy from the press release:

"Why is it important to Take Time to Read?
No matter how you measure it, Americans are overbooked and under-read. We work more hours than a medieval peasant did, and read less than we did ten years ago. The results are far from trivial. Just as our frenzied work schedules affect our health, our communities, and our sense of well-being, reduced reading time is taking its toll.

The National Endowment for the Arts studied American reading habits, producing an alarming report in 2007: To Read or Not To Read: A question of National Consequence. Among their more disturbing findings: "On average, Americans ages 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading."

Look at these neat gift cards- how clever!

Like all skills, reading improves with practice. The less we read, the worse we get at it. Our vocabularies are dropping, along with reading comprehension, critical thinking and analytical skills.

Young adult author Paul Kropp writes in The Reading Solution: "There are almost half a million words in our English Language - the largest language on earth, incidentally - but a third of all our writing is made up of only twenty-two words."
In Illiterate America, educator Jonathan Kozol points out: "50 percent of American adults are unable to read an eighth grade level book." It's worse than it sounds. Nationwide, low literacy skills affect employability, productivity, health, lifelong earning capacity, and economic stability.

In today's hectic culture, it's hard to find time to read for pleasure. The KCLS Take Time to Read campaign is a three-year project featuring innovative ways to promote reading as a community value.

Learn more about Take Time to Read at King County Library System's www.kcls.org/taketimetoread."

KCLS even helps people find the time to read on their website:

Give yourself or someone you care about a Gift of Time to read.  Pick up a gift card at any King County Library and indulge in the pleasure of reading.

Turn time to kill into time to read.  While you’re waiting for your medical appointment or your oil to be changed, take a little time to read.  Take advantage of the books, short stories and magazines on of our Quick Read Shelves throughout the county.

Go for the reads that don’t take much time. Suggestions from our librarians for Quick Reads.

Take Time to Read Programs
Do you want to have more time to read? Get organized, clear your clutter and learn time management techniques at your library.

Very nice.

 And those programs: Summer reading, of course, but there's walking with your library, opera, writing workshops, creating reading journals.... love it!
(And yes, this is the same system that was just named Library of the Year! We covered that too.)