News from the Big Read

By Poetry News

In 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts responded to data suggesting that Americans were reading less by distributing grants to non-profits around the country in an initiative they called “The Big Read.” An effort to increase readership, especially among America’s youth, the grants allowed libraries, cultural organizations and other non-profits to promote a single book through kick-off events, panel discussions, readings, screenings, and more. Over the weekend, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that 75 non-profit institutions will receive grants totaling one million dollars between September 2010 and June 2011, the lowest number of grants and total funding since the program’s pilot year. The NEA claims the reduction allows for the sustainability of the program and is in keeping with reports that adult readership on the rise.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette , for one, is not happy:

For a national reading program, $1 million isn’t a lot of money, but that’s all the National Endowment for the Arts will spend this year on its once highly hyped Big Read. It’s a 73 percent reduction.

The current NEA bosses have cut $2.7 million and 193 participants from the shiny jewel of the former Dana Gioia regime, a devastating rejection of a federal initiative that Mr. Gioia once suggested reversed the country’s decline in reading.

Appointed by President George Bush in 2002, the occasional poet, opera lover and General Foods marketing executive focused on the literary arts, particularly after an NEA study, “Reading at Risk,” determined that Americans were falling away from novels, plays and poetry.

The NEA determined that there was a 10 percent drop in adults reading those genres between 1982 and 2002. The biggest decline was charted among the 18-24 set — 28 percent.

The chairman’s response was swift and unimaginative. Instead of calling for creative approaches to encourage reading, Mr. Gioia modeled The Big Read after community reading projects in America and Great Britain. The concept is to urge residents to read one book, then discuss it in community forums . . .

2010-08-02

Posted in Arts, Books, Education on Monday, August 2nd, 2010 by Poetry News.