Nine innovative arts, libraries and museums partnerships are now underway in the East Midlands region as part of the reading inspired Books Connect project. The projects all use books and reading as a springboard for a range of exciting collaborations between public libraries, artists and museums.

For example:

• Reluctant teenage readers will be drawn into a drama project centred around Macbeth and crime fiction.
• Mr Straw's house, a National Trust museum, will provide the stimulation for reminiscence, radio commissions and work with local fiction and local history.
• The children's book Skellig by David Almond will inspire a dance and film commission
• There will also be reading inspired photography, young people working creatively with a museum's myths and legends collection and books used as the starting point for creative writing, storytelling, performance, visual and digital art.

The nine initiatives are all fully documented on the Books Connect website- www.artsandlibraries.org.uk as part of an interactive arts and libraries database. Practitioners throughout the country can add their own examples of arts, libraries and museums partnerships to the Books Connect database to create a national register of work of this kind.

The Books Connect partnerships will also be showcased at a national seminar in Nottingham on November 7th. The seminar will also include a session on the new "soft" evaluation strategies developed for the Books Connect project and the launch of an Arts and Libraries Tool Kit.

Debbie Hicks from The Reading Partnership, the library development agency co-ordinating the project said: " Its really exciting to see the nine partnership projects in place - they prove beyond all doubt the enormous partnership potential offered by books and reading. The Reading Partnership is soon to become part of a new national Reading Agency which offers opportunities to take this exciting new way of working even further."

Ann Wright, Project Manager from Derbyshire County Council added: " Books Connect is bringing a new cultural experience to new and different audiences by using the democratic and community appeal of the public library service combined with the imagination and resources of arts and museums. The Tool Kit we are developing means that this experience can be easily replicated elsewhere in the country."

Books Connect is funded by the East Midlands Regional Arts Lottery, CILIP and East Midlands Museums Service. For further information about Books Connect and the forthcoming Conference log on to the web site or contact Ann Wright direct at ann.wright@derbyshire.gov.uk.

Notes for Editors

• Books Connect aims to pilot reading inspired creative partnerships public libraries, artists and museums. Developed in the East Midlands region as an action research project, Books Connect is breaking significant new ground in the piloting of innovative models of cultural partnership, building on the national framework provided by the CPI arts and libraries research Pathways to Partnership (1999).
• Books Connect is funded by the East Midlands Regional Arts Lottery, CILIP and East Midlands Museums Service. It is a partnership between the nine regional library authorities of the East Midlands region and The Reading Partnership.
• The Reading Partnership is a library development agency promoting public libraries and their work with adult readers. It is soon to merge with two other specialist agencies Well Worth Reading and Launch Pad to form a new national Reading Agency funded by The Arts Council, CILIP and Southern Arts.
• The nine library authorities involved are Leicestershire, Leicester City, Rutland, Derby City, Derbyshire, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire.
• The project is being managed by Ann Wright, Arts Officer (Development and Regeneration), Derbyshire County Council, Libraries and Heritage Department, Alfreton Library, Severn Square, Alfreton, Derbyshire DE55 7BQ. Tel: 01773 832497, email ann.wright@derbyshire.gov.uk

Further information

Contact Ann Wright as above.

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