"Bookstore Tourism" a Potential Solution to Reading Crisis, Creator of Grassroots Effort Says

HARRISBURG, PA (PRWEB) July 21, 2004

The grassroots “Bookstore Tourism” effort could be employed by cities and towns across the country as a way to boost interest in reading and to put literature back into people’s lives, according to the concept’s creator, Larry Portzline.

Portzline responded today to a July 8 report by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) which stated that Americans are reading less, relying on electronic media for information and entertainment more, and falling far behind in literacy as a result. The study, “Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America,” referred to the situation as a “cultural crisis” and called for a national conversation about the problem.

“Most of the public reaction immediately after the NEA’s announcement centered around the desperate need for solutions,” said Portzline. “NEA Chairman Dana Gioia said it’ll take a lot of people trying a lot of different things to fix it; the president of the American Booksellers Association, Mitchell Kaplan, said booksellers need to create partnerships to encourage literacy; and an op-ed in the New York Times stated that reading needs to be a more social endeavor so people can find kinship and shared experiences in books. Bookstore Tourism is certainly one way to accomplish all of these things.”

Portzline explained that the goal of his campaign is to promote and support independent bookstores by marketing them as a tourist destination and creating a new travel niche for booklovers. In the past year, he has led six sold-out “bookstore adventures” to New York City and Washington, DC for two colleges in central Pennsylvania where he teaches part-time (his full-time job is writing for the Pennsylvania Senate). Portzline is encouraging groups of booklovers around the country to organize day-trips and other kinds of literary outings to cities and towns with interesting, fun and unique bookstores that people in their own communities may not be able to visit regularly. He stressed that the idea can work in the other direction as well, with a community’s booksellers, business association or economic development group organizing to attract bookworms to their town for a day of browsing, touring and other book-related activities.

Portzline created a website called BookstoreTourism.com to promote the idea, and will publish a how-to book this fall entitled, “Bookstore Tourism: The Book Addict’s Guide to Planning & Promoting Bookstore Road Trips for Bibliophiles & Other Bookshop Junkies.” The book will be sold in bookstores, but will also be available as a free PDF download on Portzline’s website.

Portzline has received numerous inquiries and expressions of support from the bookselling, publishing and travel industries, from educators, colleges and libraries, from book festival and “One City, One Book” organizers, and from booklovers across the country who are eager to participate.

“If people who are truly concerned about America’s reading habits are interested in trying something new, if they want literary partnerships, if they crave the kinship of booklovers, and if they aspire to a cultural community, then Bookstore Tourism can help to make that happen,” Portzline said. “This is a social endeavor all the way, and it’s a tremendous amount of fun.”

For more information, visit http://www.BookstoreTourism.com

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