Impact

We are proud of the impact our work has on people of all ages. In 2024/25, we reached over 2 million people across the UK, demonstrating the incredible benefits of reading.

Through our programmes, over 113,000 people joined their local library and over 14.3 million books were borrowed from public libraries. We are thrilled to see so many people starting their reading journey, continuing to read or rediscovering the joy of reading.

People borrowed over 14.3 million books from libraries in 2024-25

We reached over 2 million people in 2024-25

The impact of our partners

We could not share the benefits of reading without our partners. In 2024/25 we worked with 21,400 of them!

Through these partnerships, 14.3 million books were borrowed, bought and gifted. When we asked the readers of Reading Well if they found they books helpful, 92% said that they did.

We look forward to reaching and impacting even more people this year.

We partnered with over 21,400 organisations in 2024-2025, including libraries, publishers, prisons, health service providers and food banks.

113,865 new library members were created through our programmes in 2024-2025

How we evaluate our impact

We evaluate the impact of our work in many ways, ensuring that we are making a difference for our audiences:

We conduct structured evaluation of our programmes, publishing evaluation and research reports on the findings.
We monitor the reach of our programmes, ensuring we are reaching the people who need our help most.
We speak to our partners and the people that take part in our programmes to find out about their experiences. We produce case studies highlighting the difference that our work makes to the children, young people and adults who take part.
We review external evidence to ensure our work builds on the most up-to-date research. We share the reading facts and library facts to raise awareness of the difference that reading can make to all our lives.

Find out more about the benefits of reading.