Access to Information, Books and Ideas – How to Advance the Freedom to Read?

We need a political acceptance of the necessity of developing better reading strategies, with a special focus on “Higher-level reading”. Politicians must look at the funding to support reading, not as funding something “Nice to have”, but a pure necessity in the fight to uphold our democracies. These are indeed also warfare costs. There is a global trend to limit the access to books in different ways, that we must counter. We need high-level readers, and they need to have access to books. Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson, is moderating this session with contribution from Laurie Halse Anderson about how is it to be a banned author followed by a panel discussion with representatives from stakeholders, Karine Panza (President IPA), member for the Advisory Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression, Mariann Schjeide (IFLA) and Tora Aasling (European and International Booksellers Federation – EIBF). The discussion will be followed by Mihael Kovac, who will talk about The Ljubljana Reading Manifesto nad the importance of higher-level reading, and Even Aleksander Hagen (State Secretary Ministry of Culture and Equality), who will present the backdrop and need for a new reading strategy in Norway. In addition, Lillehammer’s Head of Culture, Olav Brostrup Müller, will talk about the project Leselyst being carried out in Lillehammer municipality.

The outcome from the workshop will be documented.