National Year of Reading Launch

South Australian public libraries hosted the local launch of the NYR today.  This post is a bit of a photo montage of the day.

While the weather threatened to be too hot we got away with a slightly warm event under the canopy of the Rundle Mall.  Here is the stage as people are setting up.  You can see the West Torrens Mobile Library in the background behind the stage.

The Giggly Kids entertained us all and got us moving

We had the wonderful and very supportive Keith Conlon of 5AA as our MC.  Keith is also an NYR ambassador as he is passionate about libraries and reading.  We look forward to working with him during the year. 

We also had the Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood on stage talking to us about the importance of reading and literacy.  Stephen referred to the ABS study which found that 46% of Australians struggling to have the literacy skills to get through the day.  He also talked about his English teacher mother who introduced him to the joys of reading - which started with Tin Tin, went through Asterix and Obelix, talked about "choose your own adventure stories" & then on to the world of reading as a necessity as the Lord Mayor.

We had a great crowd of student from the Sturt Street Primary School....

and Mem Fox was there to read Where is the Green Sheep?

...before she drew the winning tickets for the onsite raffle.

Both prizes - a pack of signed Mem Fox books and a bookcase of books were won by Sturt Street students...

Mem then mixed with the Giggly Kids who had provided two brackets of songs

There were some well known library people there...

That wrapped up the Mall event - but a number of us went off to the Mortlock wing of the State Library for the announcement of the SA book chosen for One Country Reads - Our Story.  Stephen Orr's book Time's Long Ruin was the winner.  

Stephen gave us a great tour of a number of SA authors from Colin Thiele to Sean Williams who have written about or evoked South Australia.  Here is Stephen making his speech.

I'll add some more photos of local events as well as any that come through from the National Launch in Canberra.

I will also post the list of authors and their contribution that Stephen referred to in his speech.

It was a very busy day & I want to thank the PLS Staff who worked so hard to make two events go off so successfully on one day.

Here's to a great 2012.  And if you want to keep up with all that will be happening go to www.love2read.org.au