In its 25th year, the Center for the Book remained one of the Library's most dynamic and visible educational outreach programs, with its network of affiliated centers in all fifty states and the District of Columbia and approximately 85 organizations serving as national reading promotion partners. Through the years the Center for the Book has inspired the creation of book and reading centers in libraries in the United States and other countries, including 22 reading centers supported by the Pushkin Library Foundation throughout Russia, and the South African Centre for the Book in the South African National Library in Cape Town.
The Center for the Book continued to administer a multiyear national reading promotion campaign, "Telling America's Stories," with first lady Laura Bush serving as honorary chair. The center once again sponsored a "Letters About Literature" student essay contest in association with the Weekly Reader Corporation and administered the Viburnum Foundation's program for supporting family literacy project in rural public libraries. The center also contributed to the success of the third annual National Book Festival by enlisting festival participants and working with its national reading promotion partners and affiliates to organize the Pavilion of the States and the Let's Read America Pavilions.
