In the annually-held, province-wide “Read for 15” competition on Friday, Jan. 27, Stettler Public Library beat Lethbridge, St. Albert and Calgary.
“Readers emailed, phoned, contacted us through our website, and came in person to let library employees know who read for more than 15 minutes,” said Matt Barabash, library manager. “Whether it was a blog post, newspaper, website, book, or social media, reading anything for 15 minutes was acceptable for one vote.”
This competition is hosted each year on Canada-wide Family Literacy Day.
According to Barabash, hundreds of people who read for 15 minutes on Friday, contacted the library to participate in the 2017 Reading Smackdown.
“Scores were calculated based on how many people reported having read 15 minutes to the total population,” Barabash added. “Although Stettler was not able to beat repeat 2016 and 2017 winner Donalda Public Library, Stettler fared quite well compared to other libraries.”