The Readers' Cup provided the following opportunities:

1. It enabled the library to promote library usage, literary advocacy and readers advisory, while at the same time creating a fun contest for the community.
2. It made the library a visible player and partner in the community-wide celebration of this world-renowned racing event, the Breeders' Cup, and helped position the Library as a key community role player in the "Horse Capital of the World."
3. It was a fun gesture of literary entertainment and goodwill for our customers.
4. It promoted the rich horse racing collection in our Kentucky Room.

We created a racing form list of 40 entries by combining classic literary titles with famous racehorses from the past. During the month of October, library customers could pick one entry slip with a horse's name every time they checked out library materials or used a library service. Customer would fill out the entry slip by picking their favorite "horse" and entering their contact information. A drawing was held at the end of the month at each branch location with the win, place and show ticket entries receiving a gift card from a local merchant.

The outcome of the Readers' Cup contest was that it provided us the opportunity to advocate literacy, promote library usage and perform readers advisory for our community. It also enabled the Lexington Public Library to share in the "team spirit" with the rest of the community as we all proudly celebrated the Breeders' Cup event in Lexington. More than one thousand entries were turned in during the month as countless library users were entertained with our list of horse names. One could imagine a patron picking "Nineteen Eighty-Forego" and saying, "I think I'm going to check out that Orwell book"!