The National Book Day is a crucial moment to raise public interest in reading books. Utilizing this momentum, the Library at Universitas Dian Nuswantoro (Udinus) or ‘Dinuslib’ held the National Book Day Festival. The festival took place on Friday, May 17th, 2024.

The festival employed the theme of ‘Connecting Generations through Books and Technology.’ It was an attempt conducted by Dinuslib to raise public interest in reading books. As explained by Patricia Ikaria R., the Library Coordinator, the festival was specifically aimed at the academic community at Udinus.

“The library serves as a unit committed to further enforcing knowledge. On this occasion, we aim to share our reading experience with the participants, particularly by adapting to technological changes,” she explained.

Furthermore, she explained that the festival was hosted online, with three activities being the main agenda. Those activities were a selfie challenge, free drink, and book sharing and discussion.

In the selfie challenge, students had to take a self-photograph of their favorite books within the library. Then, the photograph would be uploaded on Instagram by tagging the @dinuslib account. The winner would be rewarded with money.

“On that very same day, we would also offer free drinks to library visitors. Some of them even shared and discussed their favorite books on live Instagram. In short, we featured speakers of various backgrounds voicing their opinions on the books,” she highlighted.

Sharing and Discussion Session

During the sharing and discussion session, speakers shared their opinions concerning their written and personal favorite books. There were four speakers invited for this session. Those speakers were Sita R. Saputra, a book author, who discussed his own written work, ‘Surat Eyangti.’ Annisa Rachmatika, a lecturer from the Film and Television Department at Udinus, was also present to share her insight about her favorite books entitled ‘Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women’ by Silvia Federici.

The discussion continued with Ivone Margiati. She was the founder of the Public Reading Space. On that occasion, she discussed a book entitled ‘Celebrating Failures’ by Fitriyani Syahrir. Last but not least, Nikolaus Rndi P. Hadi also made an appearance to share his opinions about his book, ‘The Indonesian Language in the 4.0 Era.’

Nikolaus explained that this festival acted as a way to make an open forum to discuss books. Furthermore, it would also inspire students to read more.

“Hopefully, the festival can motivate students to read more, allowing a community to grow with literacy as its fundamental basis,” he concluded. (Humas Udinus/Ika. Illustrasi: Dinuslib)