Following the success of University of Wisconsin’s first year of the Go Big Read common-reading program, proposals are now being accepted for next year’s book.

The program, which this year included Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food,” involves students, faculty and alumni reading and discussing a certain book suggested by students.

While proposals have started coming for next year’s program, Ken Frazier, director of UW libraries and member of the Go Big Read steering committee, said he was disappointed more have not been submitted.

Compared to last year — where over 600 books were suggested — student engagement and overall nominations have been markedly low for next year’s program, Frazier said.

Frazier said this year’s book was chosen mainly by students who suggested numerous books by going online to the Go Big Read website.

“We are basically looking for a book that all students would be interested to read,” Frazier said.

The steering committee takes all book suggestions and cuts the number of titles down by determining which books meet the criteria for the program, he said. Book nominations are usually judged by their relevance to current issues, their relevance to students and the book’s content.

“It should be a book that causes us to examine issues where we all don’t necessarily agree,” Frazier said.

Once the number of books has been cut down below 20, Chancellor Biddy Martin selects the final book to be the emphasis of the year’s Big Read.

Overall, UW faculty have been very pleased with Go Big Read’s success this year despite feelings of uncertainty due to the program’s originality.

“I worried so much about how this would turn out,” Frazier said. “But I am amazed how engaged the students and the university were.”

According to Frazier, there were nearly 10,000 students involved in the first annual Big Read, not taking into account the number of UW alumni and staff that also participated.

According to Sarah McDaniel, Library and Information Literacy Instruction Program coordinator, the success of this year’s Big Read stemmed from the overall involvement of more people than was expected.

“We had a huge number of students on campus reading the book as well as a number of courses that provided it,” McDaniel said. “We also had huge involvement from the community as people came in with opinions, and the Pollan event was really well attended.”

Both Frazier and McDaniel agree this year’s Go Big Read set the standard for years to come.

“It exceeded what we ever had hoped for in terms of making connections across the campus and across different communities of people,” McDaniel said. “We have a huge challenge to do well in year two since year one went so well.”

McDaniel added one area for possible improvement is to utilize the program to help freshmen acclimate and become familiar with campus resources.