Reading Korea

Reading Korea is the Republic of Korea's year-long 2026 public reading campaign, organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to make books visible in everyday life again. The launch messaging was unusually direct. The state is responding to an adult reading rate that slipped to 38.5 percent in the 2025 national survey, and it is treating that decline as a cultural-habit problem serious enough to require a national campaign rather than a one-day event.

The rollout goes beyond slogans. Official launch coverage placed the opening ceremony at Seoul's Starfield Library on April 23, 2026 and framed the program around reading relays, local-bookstore activations, workplace reading initiatives, late-night bookstore programming, and free monthly ebook and audiobook access through On Book Store during Culture Day. Gaeul of IVE was brought in as one of the public campaign companions, which helped the project land as a living culture push instead of a purely bureaucratic announcement.

The official slogan, 2026 Reading Korea, Just Love Books, captures the campaign's tone. It is not trying to make reading sound dutiful. It is trying to make reading social, visible, and easy to re-enter through bookstores, libraries, workplace participation, and everyday digital access. That combination is what gives the campaign real policy weight inside Korea's wider cultural strategy.