World Book Night UK undergoes important changes for 2014

For the UK celebration, fewer books will be given to volunteers to distribute, but they will be freer give away other titles instead.

|
Luke Macgregor/Reuters
A volunteer distributes books in London as part of World Book Night.

The UK incarnation of World Book Night will be undergoing some changes for its 2014 celebration.

In the UK, where World Book Night was launched in 2011, the number of books that will be produced to be given away by volunteers will be halved from 500,000 to 250,000, according to industry newsletter Shelf Awareness.  

Instead, WBN UK is hoping to attract more volunteers with a new rule: volunteers will now be able to give away any book they choose rather than just the titles specified by World Book Night staff.

According to the Guardian, 20,000 volunteers participated in the UK celebration of World Book Night this past year but WBN had to turn some volunteers away. With the new rule allowing volunteers to supply their own books, everyone who shows up may participate. WBN staff hope to increase the number of volunteers for the event to 100,000 by 2017.

Volunteers who distribute books they supply themselves will be known as Community Book Givers, while those who are handing out titles from World Book Night staff will be called World Book Night Edition Book Givers.

In addition, volunteers in the UK could now be given more than 20 books to hand out (the previous limit) if they reside or work in certain areas. Places like community centers and prisons that have distributed titles in the past could also get more than 20.

Another big change: Up until now, all participants have been allowed to vote to help select the books that would be distributed for World Book Night. But the selection process has now changed and a committee will make the decision on its own instead.

The UK World Book Night also recently announced that the event will now be conducted by The Reading Group, a charity that works to support libraries and starts programs to encourage people of all ages to pick up a book. Previously, WBN was a charity that operated on its own.

World Book Night is scheduled to be held April 23.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to World Book Night UK undergoes important changes for 2014
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/1031/World-Book-Night-UK-undergoes-important-changes-for-2014
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe