World Book & Copyright Day |25 April 2014

National Library gets donation of 5,000 books

The National Library has received 5,000 books as part of activities to commemorate the World Book & Copyright Day celebrated on April 23.

The books -- fiction, non-fiction, children’s literature as well as reference materials -- have been donated by two generous donors, Imalka Senadhira and Usamah Khan.

To mark the World Book & Copyright Day a new bookshop, Sirondann, was also opened.

Seychelles has been commemorating this day for the last 15 years.
April 23 was declared the World Book & Copyright Day by Unesco in 1995 to promote books, reading, publishing and the protection of intellectual property through copyright.

To commemorate this day, the National Library organised one week of activities for the children consisting of reading, storytelling and arts and crafts activities.

“Every year, our main goal is to make people fall in love with reading and this year also we focused on that mainly. The children were pampered with the new books received as donation,” said Librarian Stella Bradburn.

“It is no secret that our culture of reading in Seychelles has a long way to go still. Nurturing such an attachment to library activities in young children will help develop a new literary culture that will greatly enhance our government’s efforts to create a learning society,” said the principal secretary for Culture Benjamine Rose.

Mrs Senadhira, with the support of her circle of friends and relatives in the USA, collected over 3,400 resource materials as a personal contribution whereas Mr Khan, a Seychellois national who resides in the UK, sent over 600 kilos of books. This is the third year that Mr Khan makes such a donation and this time the books he sent will be delivered to the library of Praslin mainly.

“I take this opportunity to highlight the noble and well appreciated gesture of both Mrs Senadhira and Mr Khan. Although living away from Seychelles they have both found the means to assist us.
This demonstrates their interest to support the educational and cultural development of our nation. Their noble actions renew our belief in the intrinsic goodness of the human being,” PS Rose said.

As for the Sirondann bookshop, located in the vicinity of the National Library, it is a collaboration of the Ministry of Culture, National Arts Council and the Creole Institute.  All books published by the Creole Institute and the Ministry of Tourism and Culture will be sold in the bookstore.

“This is a special day for our National Library and Copyright Section, for it reminds authors, composers, readers and researchers generally of the services that these organisations put at their disposal, and the need to support them. The success of the World Book & Copyright Day depends on the support of all parties including authors, publishers, teachers, and librarians, public and private institutions, humanitarian NGOs and the mass media.

It needs to be noted that the National Assembly had just approved the copyright bill and now it is up to the culture department and all stakeholders to ensure its proper implementation,” concluded Ms Rose.

During the ceremony the culture department took the opportunity to also launch its website.