Since 1999, Humanities
Montana has hosted the Montana Center for the Book, an affiliate of
the national
Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
The Montana Center for the Book promotes Montana libraries,
literature,* and literacy, through the
Letters About Literature
national writing competition for young
people, and through Humanities Montana's
OpenBook program,
One Book Montana, and the
Montana Festival of the Book.
The Montana Center for the Book began in the early 1990s through the efforts of the Montana State
Library and a number of interested librarians, writers, and others. Within
a few years, the Center moved to the Lewis and Clark Public Library in
Helena, where it resided until 1999.
Among the Center's activities in
these years were a variety of readings and programs, including the
influential "Against the Grain: Organizing Montana's Writers," which
issued in the book Writing Montana: Literature under the Big Sky, a
collection of essays on Montana literature edited by Rick Newby and
Suzanne Hunger (Montana Center for the Book, 1996).
In 1999, the Center became a program of
Humanities
Montana, Montana's independent
nonprofit affiliate of the
National Endowment for the Humanities. In
December, 2001, And again in 2005, the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress
renewed its association with the Montana Center for the Book for another
three-year term.
*for a very brief précis
of Montana literature, see our "Montana's
Literary Treasures"
