The Reading Festival began in 2008 as a weekend-long celebration that featured fifty authors and special programming in each of the County’s twenty-five community libraries. Several staff members at each location, along with two paid consultants, planned the event. When faced with a decrease in funding from the library budget, grants and sponsorships, the Library created new ways to plan and present a Reading Festival.

Implementing a regional planning model, that employs small teams across library locations we were able to minimize the demand on staff time by establishing platforms for cross-programming, cross-advertising & publicity, and by capitalizing on existing community partnerships for outreach. This regional approach required a shift in philosophy and work flow for staff accustomed to planning primarily for their individual community library but it has proven to be very effective.

In addition, the Reading Festival is now the kickoff event for the popular Summer Reading program. This joining of programs is resulting in a more comprehensive marketing plan for both and further establishes the Reading Festival as a reading initiative, in the public eye. In addition, this consolidation has allowed the library to focus funding and resources in fewer areas producing a higher-quality event in each of the five designated regional locations. This year there will be one major, international acclaimed author headlining the Festival. He will speak at the County’s premier venue which grants us access to professional publicity opportunities that will easily make up for the loss of the previous budget used for external advertising.