Celebrating World Book Day UK

Tomorrow, the 3rd of March, the UK will be celebrating World Book Day. World Book Day as recognised by UNESCO will be celebrated around the world on the 23rd of April, and therefore the National Book Council would like to take this opportunity to share its message in favour of reading and books in general.

The National Book Council would like to encourage the Maltese to make better and more frequent use of local bookshops and public libraries. Reading is important for several reasons: it is a pleasureable diversion as well as an educational one. A nation that reads is all the more mature and intelligent for it.

Nowadays online shopping has become easier and one cannot but agree that purchasing books off the internet has become somewhat the norm; however it is important that we make sure we still make use of bookshops and libraries since these institutions are undeniably fundamental in the educational, intellectual and cultural development of any given society.

Bookshops not only boost reading statistics and the love for books, but also help turn the local economic wheel on which publishers, writers, illustrators and distributors depend for a living. Visiting and making use of bookshops inevitably leads to discovery; physically leafing through a number of books and jumping from one interesting element to the next, makes visiting a bookshop an adventure in itself. Likewise with public libraries. Public Libraries are free and accessible to all; borrowing books, reading and learining is free. We must therefore think of books and reading as an investment on several levels.

On the occasion of World Book Day UK, the NBC donated several books in Italian to the Malta University Library as well as another substantial book donation of French books to the Centre Franco-Maltais at Junior College in Imsida.

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