Hi-tech library project spawns book promoting 'new ways to work with readers'

A Place Free of Judgement presents work with young readers in local libraries, and one worldwide broadcast, to encourage the next generation of borrowers

A project to reimagine libraries involving zombies, young people, a group of tech-savvy artists and a nine-hour interactive broadcast beamed around the world, has sparked a book that organisers hope will inspire library authorities.

The book, A Place Free of Judgement, is a collaboration between the performance art group Blast Theory and the writer Tony White, who put together a series of events under the same title in local libraries in Worcestershire and Staffordshire last year. Groups of young people were trained over six months in presentational, audiovisual and writing skills before taking control of their local library for a broadcast to a worldwide audience via an interactive live stream.

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