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National Library News |
by Randall Ware,
Public Programs
When I was hired by the National Library 10ten years ago to build an authors' program that would featuringe readings, lectures and launches, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for me to do. I had just spent 10ten years at the Canada Council running the National Book Festival at the Canada Council. I knew many writers. More important, I could sense the ever-growing public interest in Canadian writing. In the past decade, the National Library of Canada has welcomed more than 500 different writers and hosted more than 750 events for writers, publishers and booksellers, ranging from simple (!) poetry readings to an our annual Gala featuring the winnners of that year's Governor General's Awards.
All this activity helps to promote the world's largest collection of Canadiana. Authors' readings raise awareness of the writers and the National Library's collection very effectively.
The Library's reading series, which features both writers of fiction and non-fiction, includes book sales as an essential component of the activity. For the past few years, we have worked in partnership with Ottawa's Independent Booksellers to bring writers here and to promote their readings.
Most of the readings are arranged through the offices of book publishers and their hardworking promotion and publicity staff. These programming contacts reinforce the Library's commitment to publishers, a commitment the National Library honours in a variety of ways from the administration of legal deposit to ISBN and ISSN numbers to a Publishers' Window on the Web.
These essential contacts with book publishers and booksellers have brought the National Library fully into the writer/reader cycle. We like to say that National Library is at its best when it has writers in it. Writers, we might all agree, are the root of our business. But we might say equally that, without our frequent contacts with publishers and booksellers, we would be poorer as a major national literary institution.
Cooperation is at the heart of the Canadian book business as it must be for nations such as ours whose cultures are subject to constant pressure from beyond their borders. We are pleased and proud to be helping to promote Canadian books and to safeguard these same books for future generations.