Today is a special day. Not only is it St. George’s Day and Shakespeare’s birthday, but it is also World Book Night (WBN). This day sees 20,000 people freely distribute 1 million books in order to share the joy of reading. I was lucky enough to be selected as a ‘giver’, just as I was last year. On Saturday I went tomy local Carnegie library, Wednesbury Library, to collect my allotted 24 copies of the Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. My plate is pretty full at the moment with a hefty software integration project at work and a 10,000 word assignment for my evening class, so (purely for convenience) I decided to give out the books at work. I left them unattended in the staff lounge and when I went to check just a couple of hours later, they’d all gone. Unfortunately, distributing the books in this way means that I didn’t personally hand them out and also they were probably all snapped up by people who are already established readers; both of these factors are not ideal, but I simply couldn’t manage to distribute them any other way at the moment. I did, however, make sure the giveaway was publicised on the library’s blog and also on the intranet notice board.
I must pay credit where credit is due. The postings I made about last year’s WBN were far from complimentary. They chronicle a frustrating lack of communication and a disappointingly poor delivery system. Despite this, I dearly believe in the ethos of WBN and wanted to be involved again. I am pleased to say that this year, everything progressed seamlessly from start to finish. The organisers of WBN have improved the system in every respect - the website maintained integrity, email communication was frequent, deliveries were on time, the book registration process was simplified. I have enjoyed a smooth involvement with World Book Night this year and hopefully I'll come across some other WBN books dotted about the landscape!
Would love to hear how other givers distributed their books or if anyone 'out there' received a WBN book...
