It was a busy weekend full of reading for Sylvan Lake residents, as many participated in the national Family Literacy Day on Jan. 27.
The Sylvan Lake Municipal Library promoted the event and gave residents an extra day to participate. According to Cathy Lichtenwald, marketing director for the library, the extra day was so schools in the community could also participate.
The Sylvan Lake Municipal Competition also competed in a friendly competition with other communities to see who could get more people reading for the day.
This year Lichtenwald says was really busy for the library as people came in to the building to read with their families as well as on social media with residents submitting their names to add to the numbers.
“I think our social media campaign actually increased a bit from last year,” said Lichtenwald.
The numbers were overall positive. It is estimated one out of every five Sylvan Lake residents reported to the library that they had read for 15 minutes.
Library Director Caroline Vandriel was pretty happy with the results.
“[It] might not seem like a lot, but if you think that more than 1 in 5 people reported in, that’s pretty darn good,” Vandriel wrote in an email.
3,178 individuals reported they had read over the two days. That works out to around 21 per cent of the official population of Sylvan Lake reading on Jan. 26 and 27.
That number is down slightly from last year, when the number was closer to 25 per cent.
“It is down a bit, but we are still pretty happy about it,” said Lichtenwald.
The numbers reported in are:
Group entries/schools – 2340
Social media – 453
In person/phone in – 309
Website webform – 96
There were a lot of people coming through the doors on Jan. 27 as the library gave a one-day only 50 per cent off sale on library cards. Thirty-eight people took advantage of the sale, including four new patrons.
“We are so pleased how well our library card sale went on Saturday,” Lichtenwald explained.
To encourage Sylvan Lakers to submit their names when they read over the two days, the library made up a gift basket to be awarded to one lucky reader.
The basket was worth up to $250 and included books, passes to the Film Society and even a tablet. The draw for the winner was made on Jan. 30, and went to Abigail Petterson.