Reading and Reader Development

Professor Judith Elkin PhD FCLIP AcSS is Dean of the Faculty of Computing, Information and English at the University of Central England in Birmingham. She was previously Head of Library Services to Children and Young People in Birmingham Public Libraries, working in public libraries for a total of 20 years. She has a research specialism in multicultural children's books, and has written and edited a number of monographs including A Place for Children: public libraries as a major force in children's reading (Library Association Publishing, 2000) and Focus on the Child: libraries, literacy and learning (Library Association Publishing, 1996). She has also edited a number of anthologies of children's literature for Puffin. Briony Train is a researcher in the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include reading research, reader development, public libraries and evaluation methodologies, and she has written a wide range of publications while at Sheffield and in her previous post as Research Fellow at the University of Central England in Birmingham. She was the primary evaluator of the national reader development initiative Branching Out (1998-2001) and of a number of DCMS/Wolfson-funded projects (2000-2002). She is a member of the Committee of the IFLA Reading Section. Debbie Denham BLib CertEd MCLIP is Senior Lecturer in the School of Information Studies, University of Central England in Birmingham. She previously worked as a public librarian specializing in work with children and as a school librarian. She has considerable experience in research focused on children's and adults' books and reading. Her completed projects include: research for Book Trust on widening access to information about children's books; A Place for Children, evaluating the impact of public libraries on children's reading; and an evaluation of the Reading is Fundamental (UK) programme. She is currently joint editor of the New Review of Children's Literature and Librarianship.