World Book Night 2015...

On 23^rd April Carmarthen and Lampeter campus libraries took part in World Book Night – an evening of gifting books with the aim of targeting reluctant readers.  Back in January I had volunteered my services as a Book Giver and was fortunate enough to be accepted.

By the time the books had arrived at the beginning of March, I had forgotten all about the titles etc. so it all came as quite a surprise.  We had been given 24 copies each of Karl Pilkington’s The Moaning of Life and Lynda La Plante’s Prime Suspect.  These were two great titles to receive as it would span the demographic within the university quite nicely.

Preparations were all a bit last minute – World Book Night falling right in the heart of dissertation season was not ideal – but hopefully students would see the books as a suitable dangling carrot – perhaps something to take on that well-earned holiday and read by the pool?

The books were laid out in each campus library on Thursday afternoon and we were pleasantly surprised by the take-up.  Only a couple of copies left on each campus on Friday morning.  Better still, it was good to see that so many had offered their details for the Reading Agency’s marketing survey – the £5 high street voucher was clearly a draw.

All in all, this was a success for us and something we would definitely take part in again.  As an academic library we are here to help students with their research and information literacy skills; but we still uphold the values of all libraries and that is to take pleasure in reading – it can take you off to wonderful places!

If anyone is interested in being a giver themselves they can sign up for reminders now from the World Book Night website. 

Suzy Fisher

Periodicals Librarian

Carmarthen Campus