West Sussex Library’s Read On Scheme

With the Nibbies behind us and our Library of the Year winner crowned, we are shining a light on some of the other regional and country winners, celebrating those that reach beyond the library walls to bring rarely reached communities, adults and children into the world of books.

We asked West Sussex Library Service about their Read On scheme.

The Read On scheme is about using volunteers to help adults learn to read at their local library. The scheme has demonstrated that there are people within the community who are unable to read or want to improve their reading skills. Learning to read has a powerful impact for every individual taking part. The power of being able to read allows them to identify food items when shopping, reading to their children/grandchildren or improving their own employment opportunities.

Who did you work with to deliver or plan your project/campaign?

We identified a gap across the county in helping adults learn to read and applied for a National Lottery Projects Grant from Arts Council England. When our bid was successful, it allowed us to recruit a part-time Librarian whose role it was to deliver the project. This meant promoting Read On to community partners who would help promote the scheme to potential learners, as well as find and train volunteers. We also set up a core project group within the service to help support and deliver the project.

Tell us a secret about your library few visitors know about.

One of the strengths of the scheme is that we can use any of our thirty-six libraries across West Sussex as venues for learners and volunteers to meet. Once we have a new learner, we will match them with a volunteer within their local area.

One of our oldest libraries in West Sussex is Worthing Library, who in the early 1900’s had a pioneering rebel female librarian, Marion Frost. She was instrumental in persuading international steel baron Andrew Carnegie to give the town of Worthing the equivalent of £500 000 today to fund a new library, creating a raft of opportunities for women in the process. Throughout her life she was a real innovator and dedicated her life to championing books and the power of reading.

How did you get people involved in your project/campaign? Were there any barriers that you had to overcome?

At the beginning of the project, we knew that finding our learners was going to be a challenge. As so much promotion is undertaken using the written word, we knew we needed to find another way to reach out to people who couldn’t read. We developed a short film that could be used with our learners explaining how the scheme was going to work.

We also worked hard with promoting the scheme to community partners such as social prescribers and job centres, so they knew what the scheme was about allowing them to signpost on to the library. We have also needed to recruit and train our volunteers, by setting up a new volunteer profile and training these volunteers in using the resources we have provided. For volunteer recruitment, we used our main library volunteering page, as well as advertising in our customer newsletter and at volunteer fairs.

Can you see a difference in your team since running your project/campaign?

One of the aims of the scheme was to highlight the library as a place that could help people learn to read and improve their reading skills. Traditionally, libraries may not always be seen as a place for this to happen. Throughout 2024 we improved our range of stock in this area and also set up some additional training for library staff, to help improve their skills, knowledge and understanding. Confidence amongst the staff has increased. As the reading sessions happen in libraries, staff can also see the progression that individuals make with their reading.

How did your project bring together the community/campaign?

As a service we now understand more about helping people learn to read and how we can best support them. We have a pool of trained volunteers who are gaining in experience and confidence as they continue to work with their learners. As volunteers they are also able to support each other in pooling resources and ideas. As our emerging readers complete their journey many of our volunteers will continue with new learners.

Would you encourage other libraries around the country to do similar projects/campaigns? If so, why?

We started the Read On scheme as a pilot, as we wanted to test out the idea that we could use volunteers to help people learn to read. Our pilot year has worked well and we have now embedded the scheme as a core part of our library service. We have demonstrated that this approach can work with benefits for those learning to read as well as volunteers being able to give back to their community. We have devised a model that would work in other library authorities.

Tell us a fun fact about the building.

2025 is the centenary year of the creation of West Sussex Libraries and we have planned a range of diverse activities and events to celebrate this occasion. We are asking people to join us in our Library of Possibilities and Wonder by trying out our Virtual Reality Headsets and jumping into a world of virtual books. You can also try out our exciting 3D posters and collect 3D virtual stickers as part of a hunt around our libraries.