Manifesto of Book Advocate.

We, book advocates, free people of countries and peoples all over the world, support the linguistic, cultural and ideological diversity, spread Book Culture in the society throughout our lives, regardless of profession and sphere of activities, and declare:

1. Everyone has the right to free instruction in reading books in native and state languages, depending on the country of residence.
2. Reading 12 books a year is a cultural minimum for a reader on the path of self-development.
3. We promote reading and book culture in our families, our city, and country, and also respect and support the principles expressed in “The Rights of the Reader” by Daniel Pennac. A wide range of books for personal development and professional self-improvement must be geographically available to everyone, both for a fee or free of charge in public libraries, within a walking distance from their home.
4. Respect and love for books encourage book advocates to find opportunities to give books a “second life”, saving them from recycling.
5. Each country should have a full list of their writers and books published in the territory of the country.
6. Libraries and other book related spaces are a territory of peace, subject to full protection by book advocates, police and the army.
7. Book advocates are people with an active life position, they are aware of various issues important to an individual and humanity and take these issues into account, when promoting book reading and other initiatives useful to people.
8. All book advocates are responsible for the level of interest in reading in their country as well as the development of book culture in front of themselves and their children.

On November 16, 2017, the Manifesto of Book Advocate was presented to the participants of the "Literature and Reading" section and general public at the plenary session "Great Book Revolution" in the framework of the VI St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum. The manifesto is an instrument of uniting values ​​and self-identification aimed at promoting reading and book culture around them. This is the basic document, which sets out guidelines for the minimum amount of reading and other fundamental points for the development of book culture in the modern world.

At the moment, book culture has faced strong competition trying to gain readers’ attention. According to the "The Russian Book Market Report" prepared by the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media (Rospechat), the total volume of Russian media consumption comprises 8 hours 36 minutes per day; 2.3% of total time (12 minutes) is allocated to reading books, while watching TV takes up 49.8 % (4 hours), and the Internet consumption is 11.9% (1 hour).

According to polls, the number of people reading in Russia in December 2017 was 60% (in Soviet times in the 90's it was 80%). According to a poll held by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, in 2017 the average number of books read per year is 8.6 books, it should be noted that in 2014 this figure was 3.9 books.

There are a lot of people promoting book culture in the country, such as book publishers or book distributors, writers, librarians, heads of companies with internal book culture policy, public and state figures, parents who create a book space at home. All those people are book advocates determining the level and quality of book culture in the country.

The challenge that book reading has faced is so significant that the only way to overcome it in modern conditions is to develop relevant strategies to support the development of book culture at all levels: personal, organizational, and state levels.

Thanks to the Year of Literature and the Strategy of the State Cultural Policy the state bodies began to operate more clearly and form regional policies to support reading; however, in the public field the actions of a huge number of organizations and people turn out to be disunited, which reduces the effectiveness of efforts aimed at developing book culture. In 2015, within the framework of the IV St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum in the Literature and Reading section, some targets were set in order to specify the idea "From the Year of Literature to a Reading Country" for the period until 2020:

• The share of active readers from the total number of country inhabitants is 70%;
• At the level of developed countries, the volume of book consumption per capita is 12 books per year;
• The number of available book stores at the level of developed countries is 40 stores per 1 million people (1 store for 26.2 thousand people).

At the moment, the organizational goal is to maximize the Manifesto availability in all book related public places, to familiarize people with its content and form the community awareness of book advocates, sharing the common goal and values ​​of all readers.