This Summer GLBA Wants to Catch You...

Have you ever been caught doing it? On film? Well, if you live in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, or Michigan, odds are over the course of the summer someone might try to catch you ... reading. The Great Lakes Booksellers Association (GLBA) has organized a regional Get Caught Reading Photo Contest. The contest, a variation of the Get Caught Reading campaign sponsored by the Association of American Publishers and the Magazine Publishers of America, calls for regular (non-famous) people to shoot pictures of other regular people reading.

Jim Dana, executive director of GLBA, explained that the regional was inspired to organize a Get Caught Reading Photo contest after one of GLBA's member stores, The Wooster Book Company in Wooster, Ohio, hosted a similar contest.

"It's a great idea, since we're all looking for ways to create new readers and to get people thinking and talking about reading," said Dana. "I'm sure that when people see it, they'll be interested."

Participating GLBA member stores will offer their own prizes for the best photos and will announce their winners on July 31. Each store's winning photos will then be entered in GLBA's region-wide competition, with photos being posted to the GLBA Web site beginning August 7. From those photos, a regional winner and runner-up will be announced on August 27. The bookstores that send the winning and runner-up photos will win a trip to GLBA's fall trade show, which will be held from October 3 - 5 in Dearborn, Michigan. The prize includes the booksellers banquet and children's breakfast, free tickets to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, and inclusion of the photos on a "Readers of the Great Lakes" poster.

For complete contest details, and to see people who have been caught reading in the Great Lakes area, go to www.books-glba.org/caughtreading.php. --Karen Schechner