Artwork for the ninth annual #ioleggoperche event in Italy, the nationwide donation drive steered by the publishers’ association for library collections. Image: Association of Italian Publishers / Silvia Introzzi
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
A Nationwide Drive for Library Donations
Iin Frankfurter Buchmesse-bound Italy—this year’s Frankfurt guest of honor (October 16 to 20)—the book buzz this week is about the annual donation drive for school libraries, #IoLeggoPerché, or “I Read Because,” which has been announced to run November 4 to 12.
The Association of Italian Publishers (Associazione Italiana Editori, AIE) is behind this enormous effort, which in eight years has placed more than 3 million new books into school libraries across Italy. The key device of the project is simply to get each household to donate at least one book. And in almost a decade of the program’s run, it’s been proven to work.
“#IoLeggoPerché continues to grow year after year,” says AIE chief Innocenzo Cipolletta, “thanks to the support not only of institutions, schools, bookshops, and news media but also thanks to al Italians” who are the donors behind the books.
Innocenzo Cipolletta
“Today more than 25,000 schools are part of it,” he says, “testifying to the need that, together, we will try to respond to” for fresh books in libraries.
“Participating by donating one or more books to school libraries is an action that we increasingly hope will be for everyone,” Cipolletta says. “Taking part in it is a small gesture but a big step to involve the citizens of tomorrow by trying to make them passionate about books and reading.
“And we’ll do it this year with a special eye on the South.”
As many of our Publishing Perspectives readers know, the educational programs in southern Italy have been a source of concern for the country—and no small amount of criticism—with high dropout rates from school leading to, according to some reports, less than 40 percent of the adult population in the South graduating from secondary school, according to data from the non-governmental organization Broken Chalk, which monitors educational performance in various parts of the world.
The reason this November event is a news item now is that on June 17, nursery schools, primary schools, lower and upper secondary schools, and bookshops will begin registering on the ioleggoperche.it platform.
They’ll then be able coupled with each other, starting in September. This creates a bridge from stores to schools, so that citizens in November will be able to direct the books they want to donate from their bookstores to their schools. In addition to the citizens’ donations, AIE’s associated publishers will contribute a donation of 100,000 books divided among the participating schools that request them.
Gennaro Sanguiliano
“Reading is spiritual nourishment,” according to Gennaro Sanguiliano, Rome’s current minister of culture, “an activity that enriches the soul and allows you to broaden your horizons. Schools have a fundamental role in trying to get children back to reading.
“Thanks to initiatives such as #IoLeggoPerché, many Italians have contributed with their donations to increasing and renewing the book heritage of schools, a gesture of great social value.”
“Each book represents a piece of the extraordinary creativity of the human being,” says Giuseppe Valditara, the minister of education.
Giuseppe Valditara
“It contains a wealth of individual and collective stories, feelings, reflections. Even more so in an era of great transformations, in which speed dominates, books have a strong educational value for young people: they induce them to stop, to think, to give themselves time to deal with words, with others, and ultimately with themselves.
“This is why the book remains an irreplaceable tool for the growth of our children.
“#IoLeggoPerché is an important initiative that contributes to enriching our school libraries, which are essential safeguards for education.”
Thanks to a collaboration with the Cariplo Foundation , the #IoLeggoPerché “LAB-NIDI”program returns for a third year as an initiative designed to introduce the very young kids, those age 3 and younger, to reading.
And the project is further strengthened this year with 350 nurseries be invited to participate, always selected in the Lombardy and the Piedmont provinces of Novara and Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, the basic regional purview of the Cariplo Foundation.
More from us on the Italian market is here, more on the work of the Italian Publishers Association is here, more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, more on Guest of Honor Italy at Frankfurt is here, more on guest of honor programs in the international arena is here, and more on industry statistics is here.
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