By JOHN Y. COLE
Introduction: The Center's Establishment and Early Years
In "A Design for an Anytime, Do-It-Yourself, Energy-Free Communication Device," a 1974 article in Harper's Magazine, historian Daniel J. Boorstin praised the "wonderful, the uncanny, the mystic simplicity" of the book. The next year President Gerald R. Ford named Boorstin as the 12th Librarian of Congress, and two years later, Boorstin proposed legislation to Congress to establish a Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. With the enactment of Public Law 95-129, approved on Oct. 13, 1977, Congress endorsed a program to "stimulate public interest and research in the role of the book in the diffusion of knowledge." President Jimmy Carter approved the legislation to indicate his "commitment to scholarly research and to the development of public interest in books and reading."
The Boorstin initiative for a Center for the Book was endorsed by a Publishers Advisory Group, one of eight outside advisory bodies established in 1976 as part of a year-long Task Force on Goals, Organization, and Planning that was chaired by this writer. Dan Lacy of McGraw-Hill headed the Publishers Advisory Group, which urged the Library to create "a new body to fill and greatly to enlarge the role of the former National Book Committee," which had promoted books, reading, and libraries from 1954-1974 with support from the publishing community.
The legislation creating the center authorized the Librarian of Congress to raise private funds to support the center's activities; indeed, there was an understanding with Congress that the center's program would be privately funded. The first contribution, $20,000 from McGraw-Hill, was used in 1977 and 1978 to convene four planning meetings to discuss the new center and its potential activities. Other major contributors in 1978 were Time-Life Books and Mrs. Charles W. Engelhard Jr.
Today, the Library of Congress funds the center's four full-time staff positions, but its entire program and all of its individual projects are supported by private contributions from individuals, corporations, or foundations, or transfers of funds from other government agencies.
The Center for the Book's 25-year history, summarized below, reflects two simultaneous trends since the center's creation: the gradual emergence of reading promotion and literacy as major concerns of the U.S. book, library and educational communities; and the gradual "decentralization" of the Center for the Book idea and projects to the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Books, Reading & Technology
Television was the dominant communications technology of the mid-1970s, and one of Boorstin's immediate goals was for the Center for the Book "to do something more to integrate television and the printed word within the educational process." In 1978 the belief that television was a promising vehicle for promoting books and reading was controversial; today,it is taken for granted. The Center for the Book soon became a pioneer in using new media to remind people of the "wonderful world of books."
Immediately following its first symposium,"Television, the Book, and the Classroom," held at the Library on April 27-28, 1978, the center developed a joint promotion with CBS Television: 30-second Read More About It! messages following major CBS programs. Similar projects with cable, public television and other commercial television networks soon followed. The center prepared nearly 400 Read More About It messages for CBS Television before the project ended in 1999.
In 1983, Congress authorized a Center for the Book study about "the changing role of the book in the future." A major conclusion focused on the threat, not of technology, but of "the twin menaces of illiteracy and aliteracy—the inability to read and lack of the will to read," two menaces that had to be defeated "if our citizens are to remain free and qualified to govern themselves." New technologies were to be enlisted "with cautious enthusiasm in a national commitment to keep the culture of the book alive."
Today the center continues its interest in technology and print culture through different projects and programs, often with state centers. Read More About It! continues on the Internet via American Memory's Learning Page, where users interested in learning more about digitized Library of Congress collections can find reading lists from the Center for the Book that send them to their local libraries and bookstores to "Read More About It!"
The Study of Books, Printing, and Libraries
From the outset, it was expected that the Center for the Book would encourage the traditional, scholarly study of books and of the role of books in society. And it has. Approximately one-third of the Center for the Book's 107 publications since 1978 (54 books and 53 pamphlets) have been on historical topics. Today the center is a key organization in the new scholarly field of "book history."
Fifteen librarians, scholars, publishers, collectors, and editors from throughout the United States met at the Library on April 13-14, 1978, to discuss contributions the new center might make to the history of books, printing, and libraries—and to what was beginning to be called "print culture studies." Lectures, conferences, and publications began almost immediately. In 1979 book historian Elizabeth Eisenstein became the center's first resident scholar. "The Early Illustrated Book," the center's first major scholarly conference (1980), honored the great Library of Congress donor Lessing J. Rosenwald. In 1994, the center won an award for its contribution to book and printing history from the American Printing History Association, and it hosted the second annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP). In 1998, it hosted a program marking the 50th anniversary of the American Library Association's Library History Round Table.
The International Role
The Center for the Book's international program had two "founding impulses:" (1) the Library of Congress is a "world library," acquiring materials in most formats and most languages from most countries; and (2) when the center was founded, "the international flow of books" was an important topic of concern to publishers and librarians alike. On February 23, 1978, in cooperation with the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the center sponsored a meeting to explore issues related to the international flow of books and about how it might become a useful catalyst in U.S. government international book and library programs.
With support from the U.S. International Communications Agency (USICA), a 1979 conference at the East-West Center in Hawaii on "The International Flow of Information: A Trans-Pacific Perspective" culminated in a two-week tour to the United States for the 17 participants from 12 East Asian and Pacific Rim countries. In 1983, the center sponsored and published "U.S. Books Abroad: Neglected Ambassadors," a study by publisher Curtis G. Benjamin. From 1987-1994, in cooperation with the U.S. Information Agency, the center helped organize and staff a U.S. government exhibit booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair. From 1987 to the present, the center has helped inspire comparable book and reading centers in libraries and educational institutions in England, South Africa, Scotland, Australia and Russia.
Honoring Books & Book People
Shortly after its creation, the center began organizing and hosting events that honored "the book," important individuals in the book world, and notable series of books.
In 1979, the center and the Authors League of America sponsored "The Book," a lecture by historian Barbara Tuchman, a member of the Center for the Book's first National Advisory Board. Other programs have included: "Books in Action: The Armed Services Editions," a 1983 celebration of the 40th anniversary of the paperbacks distributed to American servicemen and servicewomen during World War II; "Amassing American Stuff," a 1995 symposium and oral history project featuring the publications and participants in the New Deal Arts projects of the 1930s and early 1940s, with a special emphasis on the Federal Writers Project (1935-1943) and its publications; and "Rivers of America," a 1997 symposium and oral history project marking the 60th anniversary of the 65-volume series of illustrated books about American rivers published between 1937-1974.
The Community of the Book
As its program grew in the early 1980s, the center began to gather and publish information about its organizational partners. Its first directory was "U.S. International Book Programs 1981," a 61-page booklet that described 32 organizations and their programs. Between 1986 and 1993, it published three editions of "The Community of the Book: A Directory of Organizations and Programs." The third edition (1993), a 150-page book, provided detailed descriptions of the programs of 109 organizations, by then all "reading promotion partners" of the Center for the Book. The introduction, "Is There a Community of the Book?" by this writer, asserts that indeed there is such a community; it stretches from the people who create books, the authors, through book designers, publishers, printers, booksellers, distributors, librarians, scholars, educators and students, to the general public and especially to the reader. The Center for the Book attempts to harness the energies and organizational skills of book professionals and the entire "community of the book" to bring authors and readers closer together.
Directory information about the Center for the Book's organizational partners, state centers, and many other national and international organizations concerned with books, reading, literacy and libraries is now available on the center's Web site (www.loc.gov/cfbook) It includes links to other Web sites whenever possible. More than 300 organizations are included.
Promoting Reading
The concept of "reading promotion," while not well-known when the Center for the Book was established, nevertheless was an "implied" national mission for the new organization. In 1981, the center launched Books Make a Difference, the first in a series of reading promotion projects that also incorporated themes that other organizations were encouraged to use, such as Read More About It! and A Nation of Readers.
In 1987, the center launched its first national reading promotion campaign, "The Year of the Reader." From 1989-1992, first lady Barbara Bush was honorary chair of three other national campaigns: "Year of the Young Reader," Year of the Lifetime Reader, and "Explore New Worlds—Read!" First lady Laura Bush is honorary chair of Telling America's Stories, the campaign for 2001-2003.
Also in 1987, the center initiated its "national reading promotion partners'" program. Today more than 90 national organizations—private and governmental— concerned with promoting reading and literacy are Center for the Book partners. Each is encouraged to share program information and to use Center for the Book promotional themes and organizational networks to benefit their own projects.
State Centers
State centers were not part of the original Center for the Book plan. While the idea had been discussed as early as 1979 at a national Center for the Book program in California, the first formal proposal for an affiliated state center was submitted in 1984 by Broward County Library in Fort Lauderdale. Florida's argument that the national Center for the Book's mission needed grassroots advocates at the state level was persuasive, and the Florida Center for the Book was established the same year. Basic guidelines for state centers were created: each needs to be statewide in its book, reading, and literacy promotion activities and to raise its own funds; and each must use its affiliation with the Library of Congress judiciously as both incentive and leverage in obtaining statewide involvement and support. Most state centers have an institutional home—a state library, a large public library system, a university or a state humanities council. State centers must apply to renew their affiliation every three years, outlining in their applications past accomplishments as well as future programming and funding plans.
In 1987, when James H. Billington became Librarian of Congress, there were ten affiliated state centers. With the approval of the New Hampshire Center for the Book in December 2002, the total number of affiliates reached 50—in addition to the D.C. Center for the Book, which is hosted by the District of Columbia Public Library. Today the most popular state programs are state book festivals; state book awards; the creation of state literary maps and state author data bases; state literary landmark projects; the "Letters About Literature" project, which promotes student essay contests about how books and authors helped shape or change a student's life; and "One Book" projects in which an entire community reads and discusses a single book.
Promoting Libraries
In the mid-1980s, the American Library Association (ALA) and other library groups began a renewed public relations effort on behalf of libraries. Because the Center for the Book's state affiliate program was underway, the center was a natural and willing partner. In 1985, the ALA chose A Nation of Readers, a Center for the Book promotion theme, as its theme for National Library Week and for a traveling photography exhibition co-sponsored with the center. The next year the center hosted its first annual Library of Congress reception to celebrate National Library Week and became a supporter of Banned Books Week.
From 1987 to the present, the center has hosted programs and sponsored publications on many library-related topics, including the role of the public library; libraries and scholarly communication; libraries and learning opportunities for children; libraries and Head Start programs; "USIA Libraries Abroad" (1993); the history of libraries in Washington, D.C.; libraries and literacy; and the history of national libraries. In 1996 the University of New Mexico Press published, in association with the center, "Library: The Drama Within," a book featuring photographs of 48 libraries around the world by Diane Asseo Griliches. In the spring of 2003, the center will host a joint ALA-Library of Congress traveling photography exhibit, "Beyond Words: Celebrating America's Libraries."
Promoting Literacy
When the Center for the Book was established, "literacy" promotion was not yet a popular concept. In 1980, the center sponsored its first program that specifically mentioned the topic: "Literacy in Historical Perspective," a conference that emphasized how historical research about literacy could help contemporary policymakers. The center's literacy promotion efforts began with its 1989 Year of the Young Reader campaign. Aided by a presidential proclamation and the efforts of honorary chair First lady Barbara Bush, the campaign enlisted several dozen literacy and reading promotion organizations as Center for the Book partners.
In 1992, the center launched a five-year Library-Head Start program to demonstrate how libraries that serve young children can work with Head Start teachers in children's literacy and language development projects. In 1996, it supported and published a major report that urged the strengthening of adult literacy programs in public libraries. Since 1998, the center's major literacy effort has been its administration of the Viburnum Foundation Family Literacy project, which provides for the planning and promotion of family literacy programs among rural public libraries and their community partners. More than 175 small public libraries have participated in the project.
The National Book Festival
The Center for the Book played a key role in the first two National Book Festivals, which were held in 2001 and 2002 in Washington, D.C. Hosted by first lady Laura Bush, the Festival is organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress.
In late summer and early autumn of 2002, 22 state centers hosted events and programs that promoted the forthcoming National Book Festival. The events were funded by grants to the national Center for the Book from AT&T and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The Center for the Book's efforts focus on the festival's author and reading promotion programs. At the 2002 Festival, there were five pavilions for author and storytelling performances and two reading promotion pavilions: the "Let's Read America" pavilion at which 60 of the Center for the Book's organizational partners distributed information about their programs; and the Pavilion of the States, highlighting information about library, literacy, and reading promotion projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four U.S. territories. Most of the state tables were staffed by people from the state—state librarians, center for the book coordinators, representatives from state societies based in the Washington, D.C., area, or staff members from Congressional offices.
The National Book Festival is strengthening the Center for the Book by reinforcing its current programs and by expanding its reach to include new audiences and organizational partners. It is helping the center come closer to fulfilling the ambitious vision expressed of it by Boorstin at the planning meeting held at the Library of Congress on Oct. 20, 1977, one week after the center was founded: "You may wonder why the Library of Congress, which, of all places on earth, is a center for the book, should now become a place for the establishing of the Center for the Book. It is to organize, focus, and dramatize our nation's interest and attention on the book, to marshal the nation's support—spiritual, physical, and fiscal—for the book."
John Y. Cole is the founding director of the Center for the Book.