Library advocacy in Europe: the Reading & Writing Foundation

Launched on 2004, the Reading & Writing Foundation is an initiative aiming to “raise awareness of the significant levels of illiteracy, in children and adults, in The Netherlands and abroad”.

Public libraries are a significant part of their work, having been selected to carry out the work on the Public Libraries 2020 Campaign, in Europe. “The goal is to support the transformation and updating of public libraries and expand their role as engines of development”.

As part of this campaign, they offer advocacy grants (they’ve closed the first round but 2 more rounds are to come in the next year) for projects at local, national or international level, that “outline services that public libraries provide in the areas of social inclusion, digital inclusion or lifelong learning”. They have published the 4 projects selected in this first round by the PL2020 Advisory Committee.

They’ve also presented a video (officially launched last 10^th December) “highlighting how public libraries in Europe strengthen communities and help people” titled Libraries Change Lives

Another interesting initiative is the MEP Library Champions, consisting on showing members of the European Parliament a public library in their countries “to build a group of library advocates among the European Parliamentarians that will support future library initiatives at EU and local level”.