Book Of The Month is BACK!

What is a library, without a celebration of its contents?

For the last few months, Book Of The Month has been revived, and this time all the titles in the running are suggested by our students!

When we put the word out via Instagram, students will suggest their favourite titles to compete for the crown. We’ll then choose three of those suggestions (that we have physical copies of) and pit them against one another. To keep the options balanced, we’ll usually try to include at least one fiction and one non-fiction title in the running, so everyone has an opportunity to vote for something that appeals to them. In a second Instagram vote, students will then have 24 hours to pick their favourite of the three!

Some of these competitions have been close. As one of the people who can see the voting as it happens, I somehow find myself checking the poll at least once every hour! For example, in February, Wild Swans by Jung Chang won over Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros by only 3% of votes. It may seem silly to some, but as a librarian, that’s a nail biter. Once the victor is chosen, a physical copy of the book is put at the Help and Information Desk, along with a little display with info on how to get e-copies. We are delighted when these books disappear from their displays – and they often do. After all, we want them to be borrowed.

Book of the Month is an important reminder that, though we are primarily an academic library, we also want our students to read for pleasure. Needless to say, there will always be a book on that specific branch of Microeconomics for when you need to revise for your exam, but more than that, we have books for our students to enjoy outside of their academic fields. Some winners of Book of the Month include books on Chinese culture, Shakespeare’s life, the hidden history of women in the Middle Ages, etc, etc. There are more than just the contents of your chosen course behind the magical (now automatic) doors of the Bill Bryson Library.

So why not take advantage of it and pick up that book on how to knit, or the basics of Ancient Greek philosophy, or re-read Sherlock Holmes again (again)? For those who prefer to swipe their pages, not turn them, we have our extensive e-Book collection on Libby, so there really an option for everyone.

Before we know it, life presents hardly any time for us to read, and we all wish we’d done more of it when we were younger. Book of the Month reminds me that young people are taking advantage of that time, that our collection is valued more than we sometimes realise, and that people still love to read about dragons even whilst studying mathematics.