Libraries in the Central West are trying to improve the community's literacy rates, in the face of statistics showing nearly half the country - 47 per cent - can't read well enough to follow a recipe or understand instructions on medication.

Jan Richards is the manager of Central West Libraries, a network taking in the Orange, Blayney, Cabonne, Cowra and Forbes council areas. Ms Richards says her region, and the whole of Australia, has "huge literacy issues".

"Forty-seven per cent of the Australian population are functionally illiterate," Ms Richards says. "That means they can't read the instructions on a medicine bottle, they can't read a map, they can't read a recipe."

Saturday is International Literacy Day, an event declared by the United Nations to recognise the importance of reading and writing.

"It's a hidden statistic, that so many people don't realise," Ms Richards says. "A lot of people who have issues with literacy are very clever at being able to hide it.

"It's a big statisitic that we as a society prefer not to look at, but at the library we're using the National Year of Reading to look at it, and ask what we can do.

"There are programs for people of all ages.

"We're encouraging parents to read to their children for 10 minutes a day from birth, so we can begin to turn that cycle of literacy around."