This two-page case study describes Valmiera Public Library’s ‘Read and Get Followers’ pilot project, which successfully used a social reading app to motivate teenagers to read. The pilot project, which is funded by the EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme (EIFL-PLIP), also helped transform the way the library works with young people: for the first time, librarians co-created a new service with teenagers.

The library worked with a Latvian software development company to create the app, which enables teenagers to create their own e-book libraries, to build networks of followers, to chat with their friends and to share opinions about books online. Working through a group of young ‘reading ambassadors’, who popularized the project, the library reached over 450 teenagers. For over half of the young learners, this was their first experience of reading e-books.