Penguin Celebrates 90th Birthday With Reception at Number 11 Downing Street
British Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledges support for Britain’s primary school libraries.
Number 10 Downing Street in London is the world-famous address of the British Prime Minister. U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves currently has her official residence right next door, at Number 11. On Tuesday, she hosted a special reception: To mark the 90th anniversary of Penguin this year, she welcomed representatives from the publishing group and spoke with them about the nonprofit project “Libraries for Primaries,” which Penguin Random House helped initiate to improve library access in primary schools.
On this occasion, the Chancellor pledged that every primary school in the U.K. would have a library by the end of the current parliamentary term. The Penguin Random House UK team welcomed the announcement with great enthusiasm. For them, it marked the culmination of a campaign they have pursued in partnership with the National Literacy Trust (NLT) since 2018. That year, Penguin Random House UK and the NLT launched a pilot project to equip 50 primary schools in the UK with libraries. At the time, one in seven primary schools in the country had no library—rising to one in four in disadvantaged areas. This meant tens of thousands of children had little or no access to books. The pilot—originally called “Puffin World of Stories”—was a great success, and the libraries in these schools became thriving hubs.
1,500 school libraries supported to date
“Puffin World of Stories” later became “Libraries for Primaries,” and Penguin Random House UK spearheaded the creation of a coalition of partners to fund the project. According to the publisher, the campaign has now helped establish around 1,500 libraries in UK schools. However, a government funding commitment was needed to reach every school in the country. In recent years, securing this commitment had become the main goal of “Libraries for Primaries”—a goal that was realized at the reception at Number 11 Downing Street.
“It felt entirely apt that this announcement was made at an event celebrating Penguin’s 90th and Allen Lane’s ambition to widen access to books and reading,” said Tom Weldon, CEO of Penguin Random House UK. “We keep that mission very much alive today, and ‘Libraries for Primaries’ is the perfect demonstration of this 90 years on.”
‘You can achieve big things, even when you start small’
One of the key principles behind Penguin Random House UK’s social impact work is to collaborate with partners to address complex, systemic issues, Weldon continued: “We combine our expertise and resource, along with the power of our brand, with other partner contributions. This allows us to scale and drive genuine transformational change.”
This achievement also demonstrates the value of being bold and entrepreneurial, Weldon added. The project started small—with a pilot program at just 50 schools—but with a big ambition: “Our goal from the outset was to get a library into every primary school, even though we knew it would take us a while to get there. Again, I am reminded of Allen Lane, and the risks he took when he started his paperback revolution. This program has shown that you can achieve big things, even when you start small.” Many Penguin Random House UK colleagues have supported “Libraries for Primaries” over the past seven years, Weldon noted. Teams from Brand and Social Impact, Children’s, Legal, Inventory, and Distribution have helped deliver tens of thousands of books to schools: “It’s all their hard work which has led us to this moment.”
