Dina Ezzat reports on Egypt's expanding national reading campaign "Let us make reading part of our daily life. Let us read for life." This call is part of a recorded TV advert that Mrs Suzanne Mubarak has made to help launch her "Reading for all" campaign. Other adverts being aired feature popular figures such as football players, actors and singers. The message is the same: reading is something that all Egyptians need to do more regularly. "Reading for all" is an almost two-decade old campaign that aimed initially to encourage students at schools and universities to complement otherwise unimaginative school curriculae with time spent in school libraries that were furnished with a few interesting titles, or through public libraries established in many parts of the country with reduced membership fees. Over the years, the campaign expanded in scope and audience. It targeted small children through the complementary "Read for your child" campaign. It also targeted different age groups and socio-economic backgrounds with the introduction of the "Family library", that has been re-printing popular titles at economic prices. This year the campaign is set to expand much further. According to statements made by Mrs Mubarak during the launch of the campaign this weekend, the "Reading for all" campaign is to become a yearlong drive aggressively targeting all individuals who can read and write. "After all, it is only as part of cultural justice that we aim to make reading accessible for all individuals," Mrs Mubarak said during a short statement delivered amid the festivities of the campaign launch. State-run TV and radio channels are already pushing the public to make better use of public libraries or take the opportunity of picking up low-cost copies of bestseller titles made available at state-run bookstores or at newsstands. The main thoroughfares of the capital are doted with posters announcing the beginning of the campaign on yearly basis. Similar posters are expected to be made available at all state governorates within the coming few days as the launch of the campaign picks up momentum after its opening in the capital and then in Alexandria on Sunday. Public libraries are already making plans to expand the scope of their activities in accordance with the declared objective of running the campaign on yearlong basis. Omar Mohamed, director of the Heliopolis Public Library, said that librarians are already informing visitors of plans to expand the campaign. According to Mohamed, the activities administered by his library under the campaign are not confined to simply making books available on the shelves. "The 'Reading for all' campaign also includes a wide range of diversified activities that cover, among other things, learning foreign languages, attending art classes and music lessons and acquiring personal skills." Library-goers have been informed that these activities will now be made available throughout the entire year. Moreover, Mohamed is holding meetings with directors of near-by schools to make joint plans for the academic year. "We will go to them to encourage them to come to us," he said. Mohamed, like Hanan Al-Minyawi, director of Arab Al-Mohamedi Public Library, wants to establish a particular protocol of cooperation with community schools. "It will be very useful if school teachers ask their students to do research on relevant curricula material and instruct them to come to the library in search of the required knowledge," Al-Minyawi said. Mohamed, Al-Minyawi and Omar Al-Shibawi of the Greater Cairo Library are all in agreement that the success of the "Reading for all" yearlong campaign depends on providing students -- the main dedicated audience -- with incentives. "If a student is told that when he goes back to school from his summer holiday and provides summaries of, say, 10 books, his grades will be up-scaled at the end of the academic year, this would encourage many to read," Al-Shibawi suggested. All three librarians believe that "incentive-based" initiatives should also be formulated to attract adults to read. "Reading is an acquired habit when children grow up in a household where parents read," said Al-Minyawi. The challenge, then, is how to encourage adults who are not in the practice of reading to pick it up. Librarians who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly seem out of answers. The Greater Cairo Library -- a public library that offers its visitors full free access to a very rich inventory of books, cassettes, newspapers, magazines and CDs -- is out of visitors for the most part. Except for the odd post-graduate researcher, the massive halls of the library are empty, the only exception being the room dedicated to children's activities and reading. "I believe we have to invest most of our time and effort to promoting the value and habit of reading in the younger generation. They find it easier and faster to learn and acquire habits," said Mohamed. Sarah, Lobna, Rose and Yasmine are four primary school girls who visit the Arab Al-Mohamedi Library on a daily basis. The four simply love to read. They say, however, that it is rather unpractical to expect them to find time for extra-curricula reading during the academic year. The reason is only too obvious: by the time the average student of a public school in Egypt gets back home and does their homework they have very little energy left for any other activity. In addition, the majority of Egyptian children do not live in homes where they have opportunity for bedtime reading. Even those who have such a luxury, like Daniel, Norah, Fatemah and Trese who attend foreign schools, there is always the problem of time and energy. The answer, children from the more or less privileged segments of society agree, is to incorporate a reading class as part of the weekly school programme. The librarians who spoke to the Weekly agree. They said some schools tend to bring their students to the library on a day-out activity once a month. This, they said, could be made more frequent.
