The South Carolina State Library is pleased to announce a new member to its family of web sites, ReadSC.org.  The web site supports the State Library’s South Carolina Center for the Book which is the South Carolina affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. The Center is a cooperative project of the South Carolina State Library, the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science, and the Humanities CouncilSC. The Center is located at 1430 Senate, Columbia, SC, in the State Library’s Center for the Book & Talking Book Services Reading Room.
The South Carolina Center for the Book celebrates South Carolina’s rich literary heritage and brings public attention to the importance of books, writers and reading.  The Center co-sponsors literary events, such as the Speaker @ the Center program which coordinates monthly author talks in partnership with the University of South Carolina Press.  The Center also coordinates the Letters About Literature student writing contest.  To enter, students in grades 4-12 write a personal letter to an author, living or dead, from any genre– fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic, explaining how that author’s work changed the student’s way of thinking about the world or themselves. There are three competition levels: Level I for children in grades 4 through 6; Level II for grades 7 and 8, and Level III, grades 9 – 12.
The Center also hosts an annual award ceremony celebrating writing, teaching, and literary arts advocacy.  The SC Center for the Book Awards were formerly a single award known as the Palmetto Book Award. In 2008, the Palmetto Book Award expanded the award to honor excellence in three categories:
•     Writing: SC writer of any genre whose work has been published in the last year.
•     Teaching: SC teacher of the literary or language arts (at any level or type of school)
•     Advocacy: SC person or organization that works to promote the literary arts and to foster a creative atmosphere in the state
In 2010, the State Library joined the awards by creating the South Carolina State Library Partnership and Collaboration Award.
For more information about the South Carolina Center for the Book, please visit ReadSC.org.