Vitebsk Regional Library Joins the Bookcrossing Movement on Library Day

September 14, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. On Library Day, September 15, the Vitebsk Regional Library will launch a new movement for the region - bookcrossing, the library's director, Alexander Syomkin, told a BELTA correspondent. The word "bookcrossing" can be literally translated from English as "book turnover," thus understanding the essence of this movement - the free circulation of books. "Read a book and let it go" is the motto of this trend, popular in Europe. A participant in the movement, a bookcrosser, leaves a book on a "safe shelf" created in any public place, which another reader can take without hindrance, and after reading it, return it. So, the staff of the regional library decided to release about 100 books from their home libraries into free flight. A "safe shelf" will be opened specifically for this purpose in the lobby. Anyone, not necessarily a library reader, can come and take a book they like from it. Librarians hope that Vitebsk bookcrossers will also bring their books for free exchange. According to the library director, readers will not take books out of circulation and will return them. "Readers are decent people," Alexander Syomkin is convinced. "After all, out of 55,000 readers of our library, only 100 people forget to return a book on time." The birth of bookcrossing is considered to be May 2001, and its founder is the American Ron Hornbaker. He opened the first "safe shelf" in the lobby of his hotel. In Europe, bookcrossing is most popular in France and Italy. In Belarus, it is just gaining momentum, initiated in 2007 by one of the children's libraries in Minsk. Today, "safe shelves" have been created in three public libraries in the capital, and the volume of books involved in the movement is growing year by year. -0-