National Library Week 2009

An Overview of the Annual Celebration and Its Weeklong Events

Apr 13, 2009

The week of April 12, 2009 is the annual National Library Week, sponsored by The American Library Association. Here's a look at some of the events taking place.

While libraries offer many free and low cost services for their patrons, there still remains a large portion of people who are not familiar with the wealth of resources that can be had at their local library. Besides encouraging the general public to do more reading, National Library Week also strives to make communities aware of the wealth of offerings available to them at their library.

What is National Library Week?

National Library Week is an annual week-long "celebration of the contributions of our nation's libraries and librarians" sponsored by The American Library Association (ALA). It was first celebrated in 1958, and has since served as a way for all kinds of libraries (public, academic, school and specialty) to encourage library use.

The beginnings of National Library Week were quite ambitious. The project sprung from two concerned groups, the ALA and the American Book Publishers, who became increasingly concerned at the amount of time Americans were spending on leisure activities other than reading. They formed the National Book Committee in 1954 as a way to counteract the media overload of the 1950s, specifically, to get people to read books instead of spending their free time listening to radio and watching television. According to the ALA, the goals of the initial committee included the obvious "encouraging people to read in their increasing leisure time", as well as the more inspired goals of "improving incomes and health" and developing strong and happy family life".

Theme of This Year's National Library Week

Each year since its inception, National Library Week has had a theme that runs prevalent throughout all of the weekly celebration events. The first National Library Week's theme was appropriately titled "Wake Up and Read". The theme for 2009's national Library Week is "Worlds Connect @ Your Library", which encourages library patrons to use all of the tools and professional assistance available to them at their local libraries. According to a recent ALA press release, this year's theme also strives to emphasize the point that libraries can keep people connected "providing a space for people of all ages, classes and races to come together, while keeping us connected to events and people around the world."

Notable Events Taking Place at This Year's National Library Week

This year's Honorary Chair of National Library Week 2009 is Jamie Lee Curtis who appears on all promotional materials related to the celebration.

Contact your local library for a list of any special activities and events that may be taking place during the week.

The copyright of the article National Library Week 2009 in Literary Events/Celebrities is owned by Lisa Rufle. Permission to republish National Library Week 2009 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.