The article gives a brief overview of literacy and reading in South Africa and explores the current
reading culture in the country. Organisations working towards improving literacy and strengthening the
South African reading culture focus on young children and teenagers. There are very few reading
projects aimed at developing a reading culture amongst university students. The One Book One Library
project at the University of Johannesburg has the long term objective of creating a reading culture at the
University. The article discusses the critical success factors for the project that asks the University
community to ‘read the same book at the same time’ as well as the benefits of the project for both the
readers and the library.