Guerrilla against reading decline

A new student project at the Institute of Information and Library Studies of Faculty of Arts tries to show that reading is sexy, cool and trendy. Guerrilla Readers comprises seven students. Six women and one man will try to bring young people back to reading. They would like to do this by so-called guerrilla marketing – in unusual, suprising and amusing way.

"Non-profit educational institutions in the Czech Republic – led by public libraries – do not use marketing effectively and do not behave in accordance with the law of the market," complains one of the authors of the project, Eva Güntherová. "The number of readers continues to decrease and libraries do not react flexibly enough, relying on their monopoly role in information services. But for young people, spoilt by the interactive and amusing internet, libraries are not attractive any more and this is just because the libraries are not able to show their advantages," Güntherová says about the problem the Guerrilla is reacting to.

The mission of the organizers is to show that reading is unique, irreplaceable and will never go out of fashion. "Guerrilla transforms into many different shapes – from graffiti, public performance to hackers´ projects in the media. A big advantage of guerrilla marketing is its low cost because the method takes advantage of creativity and the knowledge of its target group," Güntherová says.

Guerrilla Readers organize not only the production of posters and T-shirts but also bolder activities. "We are planning activities like freezing –where we suddenly stand stock-still on the street, and a guerrilla attack on public transport, a false demonstration in Brno´s centre, street art with reading themes and many others," says about the plans Olga Biernátová, another team member. The project is in its first phase. "In the near future we are going to present our project at a conference in Opava and the first of our acts would be mildly erotic librarian calendar for the year 2010," Biernátová adds.

To find out more, go to: www.inflow.cz.