Friends of the Ipswich Library Service (FOILS)

President of FOILS with a Books for Babies bag recipient - 2007

Photograph courtesy of
The Queensland Times, Ipswich

Books for Babies Project

Books for Babies is an early literacy project initiated by the Friends of Ipswich Library Service (FOILS) in 2007, with the aim of raising awareness among new mothers of the importance of reading to children from a very early age. Through this project, Friends work in collaboration with Ipswich Hospital and St Andrew’s Ipswich Private Hospital, to present mothers of all babies born during the month of August, with a special gift package to encourage them to read to their child from birth. Each pack contains:

carry/book bag with colourful Books for Babies logo
board book
It’s Rhyme Time booklet & DVD
information on the importance of developing the literacy of children by reading to them as babies
Ipswich Library and Information Service brochures
library membership application
2008 Storytime Passport and Bookmark
Application for Ipswich Commemorative Birth Certificate

More than 200 gift packs are distributed by the hospitals each August. The project is timed to link in with Children’s Book Week, an annual event organised by the Children's Book Council of Australia and celebrated throughout Australian schools and libraries in August each year. The project also includes an official launch held at one of the hospitals.

The Books for Babies project is based on Bookstart programs currently operating overseas and in a number of Australian libraries. For further information on these programs please read: Australian Bookstart: a national issue, a compelling case, a report to the nation by Friends of Libraries Australia (FOLA).

‘If every parent understood the huge educational benefits and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent – and every adult caring for a child – read aloud a minimum of three stories a day to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation.’
Reading Magic – Mem Fox

For further information about the Books for Babies Project please:

Telephone: (07) 3810-6761 or

Email: cmoore@ipswich.qld.gov.au