Columbia College Chicago Library has been awarded $16,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts through The Big Read. The Big Read is an NEA supported reading inititiave which provides funding for community partnerships across the country to highlight one book through book discussions and programming to encourage reading among all ages. The Library has chosen In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez as its Big Read reading selection for Spring 2013.

This is the fourth Big Read in which the Library has participated. The first was Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club in 2007 (in partnership with the Center for Asian Arts and Media) followed by Farhrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury in 2009, and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien in 2011.

The Library is one of 78 communities throughout the United States to receive this award, and the only one representing the Chicago area. Other Illinois libraries include Quincy, DeKalb and Galesburg public libraries.  For more information about the 2012-2013 grant awards, the official press release from The Big Read is available here.

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. More about The Big Read is available at http://www.neabigread.org.