Festival to make family libraries affordable

By Rand Dalgamouni

AMMAN - For 350 fils, families on Sunday will be able to buy books from the region and across the world for their home libraries.

The Family Library, a book festival which was first launched in 2007, will offer 50 titles this year on subjects such as history, culture, literature, arts and sciences as well as children’s books.

Secretary General of the Ministry of Culture Jeryes Samawi told reporters on Wednesday that the Family Library project aims to address some of the ministry’s core goals: fostering a culture that “loves to read” and promoting books that raise cultural and social awareness.

In a press conference yesterday, he explained that a special committee comprising representatives of various cultural institutions selected the titles and the Ministry of Culture made the necessary arrangements to secure permission to reprint the selected books.

“We pay a great deal of attention to preserving the intellectual property rights of every author,” he noted.

Under the program, the selected titles are sold in all the Kingdom’s governorates, including four centers in Amman, in addition to the main location at the National Library Department, and two each in Zarqa, Irbid, Mafraq and Balqa governorates.

Some of the titles were difficult to find, Samawi said, adding that one was taken from Minister of Culture Nabih Shuqum’s private library while other titles were found in the possession of private collectors.

The secretary general said the ministry hopes the project becomes autonomous, with a permanent committee carrying out the initiative several times throughout the same year.

The festival opens on Sunday at 10:00am and will run through Wednesday December 8. Starting Monday, books will be on sale from 9:00am to 6:00pm at the various centers.

After the festival, the remaining books will be taken to areas where sales centers were not available.

2 December 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=32269.