Miranda McKearney OBE is Director of The Reading Agency (TRA), a development agency for public libraries’ work with readers. TRA’s mission is to get more reading to more people, through libraries and their partners.

The agency’s work includes policy, research, advocacy and national programmes. It is leading an exciting programme of reading-inspired partnerships for libraries, with partners as diverse as BBC Learning and Orange. Its Reading Partners pilot involves nine major publishers, and aims to revolutionise the way adult publishers work with libraries, leading to a more vibrant reading scene in libraries. 

Since The Reading Agency came into being in 2002 it has led some powerful national library initiatives. It created the libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge, which now involves 600,000 children, who are challenged to read 6 books over the summer holidays. 

Miranda is passionate about libraries and reading. She has worked as an activist in the field for 18 years, and founded the three smaller agencies which were merged to form TRA.