Gioia Vows to Change America's Reading Habits

Dana Gioia, National Endowment for the Arts chairman, is promising to deliver "the biggest federally run literature program in American history" later this year. The program, expected to be officially announced this fall, will be the most ambitious program to date aimed at stemming the slide in reading documented by the NEA's "Reading at Risk" study, which was released last July.

Although the details have yet to be ironed out, Gioia said the program, to be called the Big Read, will be modeled after City Reads programs in cities like Seattle and Chicago and will involve partnerships between the public and private sectors. Gioia envisions a coalition of mayors, libraries, the media, publishers and booksellers working to promote the reading of selected books in cities across America. He said the program "will start with a limited number [of cities], but will broaden quickly."

The Big Read will follow other NEA programs in which the association invests seed money that is matched by the private sector. He said the NEA's Shakespeare program, which follows such a model, "has brought Shakespeare to more than one million kids in 240 cities." Gioia is determined to develop a reading program that will serve as more than a symbolic gesture to increase reading across the country. "We're hoping to create something that will change the reading habits of Americans for the better," Gioia said. He acknowledged that "no single program" can solve the decline in readers by itself, but he is hopeful that if the Big Read is done "with creative flair and executed properly, it could be quite important in providing a model for other programs."

How much funding for reading programs will be available from the federal government is unclear. Gioia said he expects the NEA budget to be increased by $5 million to $10 million for the fiscal year beginning October 1. (The NEA budget in the current year is $121 million after a $3 million increase was rescinded.) "Our goal is to figure out the best programs and then find a way to get it funded," Gioia said.