The American Center for Reading and Expression works to strengthen literacy, inspire the joy of reading, and protect the conditions that allow books and ideas to flourish.
We bring readers and the literary community together through public education, research, advocacy, and partnerships — expanding access to books, defending the freedom to read, and sustaining the human creativity behind the stories and ideas that shape our lives.
Our Mission
Reading opens doors: to knowledge, imagination, opportunity, empathy, and participation in the world around us. ACRE exists to help more people walk through them.
Our mission is to strengthen America’s culture of reading by championing literacy and the joy of reading, protecting the freedom to speak, read, and think, expanding meaningful access to books and ideas, and supporting the people and institutions that make a vibrant literary culture possible.
We connect readers, authors, illustrators, librarians, educators, publishers, booksellers, and community partners around a shared purpose: ensuring that reading can thrive for generations to come.
Why Reading Matters
Literacy begins with the ability to read, but a nation of readers requires more. People need opportunities to encounter books, the freedom to choose among ideas and perspectives, trusted institutions that connect them with reading, and a continuing abundance of human-created stories, knowledge, and imagination.
That is why ACRE’s work extends from literacy and reader engagement to freedom of expression, library and public-policy questions, and the future of authorship and creative work. These issues are connected by a simple principle: readers should have the skills, freedom, access, and choices that allow a lifelong relationship with reading to grow.
What We Work to Protect
Literacy & the Joy of Reading
Building a stronger culture of reading by advancing understanding of literacy, reader engagement, access to books, and the experiences that help people become lifelong readers.
Freedom to Read & Expression
Protecting the ability to discover books and ideas without unnecessary restriction — and supporting the authors, librarians, educators, booksellers, and communities working to preserve that freedom.
Access, Libraries & Public Policy
Helping policymakers and the public understand how laws, regulations, resources, and institutional practices affect the ability of readers to find and use books in their communities.
Creativity, Authorship & the Literary Ecosystem
Supporting the conditions that allow human creativity to flourish so that readers continue to encounter a rich, diverse, and sustainable world of books and ideas.
From Literacy to Public Action
The challenges facing reading do not exist in isolation. Restrictions on books can narrow what readers are able to discover. Policy decisions can change how libraries provide access. Economic and technological shifts can affect whether authors and other creators can continue producing new work.
ACRE brings these questions together around readers. We contribute research, legal and publishing expertise, public education, advocacy, policymaker engagement, and coalition support — connecting national knowledge with the experience of communities and the people who create and share books.
Our goal is a future in which more people can read confidently, discover books that matter to them, explore ideas freely, and benefit from a literary culture sustained by human imagination.
Contact Us
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