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  David
Landley (Books for Students), Steve Hocking (Editor, Blue Peter),
Peter Beauchamp (DCMS), Margaret Croucher (Resource), Catherine
Blanshard (Chair, LaunchPad), and Jonathon Douglas (The Library
Association).
What is LaunchPad?
Created in 1998, LaunchPad is a library development agency with
a mission to highlight the importance of libraries' work with
children, and build new partnerships between libraries and other
sectors.
- LaunchPad concentrates on partnership projects, national
library promotions and advocacy and training.
- LaunchPad is a single entry point to access all UK library
services for children; that translates into over 4,000 libraries
across 206 regional library authorities (including Wales, Scotland,
Northern Ireland and England).
- LaunchPad has pioneered national public - private sector partnerships
involving ASDA, Ford Motor Company and Random House (in 1999-2000),
and more recently Marks and Spencer PLC (2001), to create sustainable
new initiatives for children and families with public libraries.
- The main library organisations involved as LaunchPad partners
are The Library Association (and thus the Youth Libraries Group
and the School Libraries Group), the Society of Chief Librarians
and the Association of Senior Children's and Education Librarians
(ASCEL). In Spring 2001, LaunchPad will have completed the transition
to a registered limited company with charitable status.
Context
LaunchPad works alongside the library profession to ensure that
it delivers services which address education activity as well
as central and local Government priorities such as:
- Life long learning
- Inclusion
- Regeneratio
- Community Cohesio
- Employability of young peopl
- Professional Development / staff trainin
- Partnership workin
- School achievement
Projects
"Reaching Parents"
1999 — 2000 Parents as they shop,
in partnership with ASDA supermarkets
Reaching Parents, a £500,000 ground breaking partnership programme
to take the library beyond the building and into the high street
and the workplace.
1999-2000 Reaching working parents at Ford
EDAP & London Transport
A wide range of Ford employees reached through The Book Shift,
an innovative library partnership with EDAP, the Employee Development
Assistance Programme run by the trade unions and management. The
problems of working shifts were addressed in a six-month experiment
at Dagenham Body Plant where workers were able to borrow books
from a special area on the shop floor during staggered meal breaks
During the summer holidays there were themed literacy activities
in the London Transport Museum and the Museum's education service
will be linking London Transport employees to libraries' 'busy
parents' reading advice.
1999 — 2000 Reaching parents at leisure,
in partnership with Random House
'Kick Off!' focused on 'lads and dads' (fathers aged 20-35 and
sons up to 12 years) and emphasises the importance and recreational
value of reading. It celebrates the kind of reading enjoyed by
men and boys, introduces new reading experiences, encourages them
to make reading part of their lives and shows how a father's involvement
can make a real difference to a son's interest in reading. 'Kick
Off!' takes reading experiences into different recreational settings
such as football clubs and leisure centres.
These programmes kick-started on going activity, which has continued.
New Reaching Parents projects for 2001:
"The Big Book Share"
A pilot scheme in Nottingham, in partnership and with financial
backing from Marks & Spencer, working with Dads who are in
prison or on remand. Called "The Big Book Share", the
project is allowing Dads to maintain a relationship with their
children from prison by sharing books with them at visits, lending
books from special collections set up in prison, and recording
stories on tape for their children to take away and listen to.
Older children can take part in the summer reading challenge at
prison visits. There is associated support for parents in prison
with poor literacy skills. This project will be rolled out nationally
in 2002.
"Reaching Parents" is
unashamedly a demonstration programme. It sets out to show the
huge partnership potential in libraries' work with children. It
showcases libraries' flair and ingenuity in developing readers,
it shows how libraries can form imaginative partnerships to reach
out to new audiences: they can work on the shop floor or the supermarket
foyer, in a museum or a garage. Their skills and resources are
flexible and transferable.
"Imagination Time" — a children’s
arts and health partnership project:
This programme dovetails with elements of reaching parents projects
as it will be working with parents who are staying / visiting
their children in hospital. Imagination Time is a partnership
project with Walker Books, libraries and those providing care
for children in hospital. The pilot is supported by Walker Books
and a grant from The Arts Council of England. The initiative will
provide staff development support, resources and books to enhance
a child’s stay in hospital. It will go some way to providing
an experience of the arts, making up for the provision normally
provided through mainstream schooling. Activities linked to the
local public libraries and for visiting siblings and friends will
help sustain further interest in books and links with life back
home. Imagination Time will be piloted in London in 2001 and rolled
out nationally in 2002.
National library promotions
The annual summer reading challenges:
The work of individual libraries will be maximised, and economics
of scale achieved through co-ordinated national promotions. The
annual summer reading challenge for children aged 4-11 organised
by LaunchPad is now in its third year, and already has 85% of
UK authorities buying into the programme which involves over half
a million children. 2001 will see the introduction of an additional
reading challenge aimed at 11-13 year olds, called "Challenge
Plus". The 2001 challenge is called "The Reading Carnival".
Children’s reading groups in libraries
New in 2001 (embargoed information)
Autumn 2001 will see the launch of a new initiative to facilitate
and support children’s reading group in libraries. This will
be run by 3 trailblazing authorities in Autumn 2001 and made available
nationally for 2002. This exciting new development is being supported
by Orange (mobile phone company)
Advocacy
LaunchPad works to reach key audiences with messages about the
value of libraries' work with children, with a strategic approach
to gathering and then disseminating evidence about libraries'
impact on children's lives.
LaunchPad is demonstrating that the combination of professional
marketing and library skills is an extremely potent one - and
LaunchPad adds value.
These partnerships enable national library promotion activity
on a cost-effective scale. Developing strong links with the commercial
sector is showing the impact and value of library services for
young people to a wider audience.
Day after day our 4,600 libraries quietly offer children some
very precious things:
- contact with a wider world of imagination and information
- free access to books from the day you are born
- inspiration from live contact with authors, illustrators and
storytellers
- study support through a growing and impressive network of
homework clubs
- computers, tapes, newspapers, teenage collections, reading
groups
- somewhere safe and communal to experience oneself and grow
- a place where
- young people's choices matter
It is LaunchPad's mission to make a great deal of noise in celebration
of just how much all this matters and just what a difference it
makes to our national life. Alan Howarth, Minister from the Department
of Culture, Media and Sport, at the launch of Reaching Parents
described LaunchPad as a "terrific example of how we can raise
the profile of public libraries to help them take the central
place we are carving out for them in the Information Society".
Further information about LaunchPad from the co-Development Directors:
Miranda McKearney: Tel: 01962 865102 miranda@quarryroad.demon.co.uk
Anne Sarrag: Tel: 01273 203977 AnneSarrag@aol.com
More articles from News From The LA
Building for the Future
Bob McKee, Chief Exectutive, Library Association
Youth and Schools Libraries
2001 Onwards! Jonathan Douglas
Early Years Report
LaunchPad: Carnival of Reading
Catherine Blanchard
ChatterBooks Talking
about the books you want to read – Tricia Kings
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