Promoting reading 1
and the expansion of communications networks, as
well as increased access to the Internet. The idea behind the mobile library is an old one, of offering a library service to sparsely populated rural areas. For this purpose, besides buses and other wheeled vehicles, Sweden also deploys book boats in several areas. Projects that include various forms of mobile library often have the ambition of reaching out to children and young people who otherwise might not visit the library. One of the alternative lending activities that libraries have developed is the communal laundry library. Communal laundry libraries are found in the form of smaller spontaneous libraries, in other words a collection of books that has been placed by private initiative in a shared community or communal laundry room; and in larger, organised forms in collaboration with public libraries and other actors. The communal laundry library is a room connected to the laundry room where neighbours can socialise and share their reading experiences. In connection with the establishment of the laundry room library, a book representative is also trained. Lectures and author visits have also been held as part of this activity. Another method for increasing the availability of books is the cloakroom library at preschools. Cloakroom libraries have been used in reading promotion efforts to foster reading aloud among parents. The idea is to offer parents books to borrow in connection with dropping off and picking up their children, by means of an easily managed lending system. Some libraries have offered cloth library bags in the cloakroom, filled with a selection of books to read aloud. These book bags, which may be the size of a shopping bag or a larger sports bag, are a very common feature of the public library’s efforts to make literature available and have sometimes been shown to have a significant impact on the children’s reading. Book representatives, or book reps, have an important function in workplace libraries. They are responsible for the workplace library and may also be assigned the task of handling the lending, providing a reading advisory service to their workmates, and providing information about the library. It has been pointed out that workplace libraries with an engaged book rep at a workplace probably has a better chance of promoting reading than a librarian, whose presence at the workplace is usually limited to a few times each month. To provide training and a source of inspiration for book reps at workplaces, various seminars have been conducted in Sweden. Finally, the chapter discusses some examples of making reading material available through digital media. It is easy to see the reading promotion potential in the enhanced availability and many reading options that have arisen with the advent of smartphones and tablets. It is just as easy to see in the same technology a potential threat to reading. Cautious assumptions about the reading promotion potential of the e-book for boys have been made. According to a summary of the research on the impact of e-books on reading motivation and reading ability, it is too optimistic to assume that e-books might be a path to reading for people who do not read printed books. On the other hand, e-books, just like printed books, can be used in reading promotion efforts. Reader surveys indicate that reading e-books and paper books is not a matter of either/ or. The majority of the research on children’s and adolescents’ on-screen reading has so far focused on its impact on literacy. There is much more to know about the impact of e-books on attitudes to reading and reading motivation. A study that compared 115