1,800 Rare Booksellers Worldwide Strike a Blow for Literacy

Organising a chain of worldwide events is not easy as Australian Sally Burdon and German Barbara van Benthem, both members of ILAB, have found, particularly as they live 16,285 kilometres apart and all the organisation was done by Skype and email.  Not easy, but it can be done!

"On April 23^rd, 2015 for 24 hours we ran a series of bookish events across the world to celebrate UNESCO's World Book and Copyright Day," Barbara van Benthem, one of the two convenors, recalled. "It was quite a day! Beginning in Sydney on the morning of April 23, one rare book event after another opened around the world. From Sydney the baton passed to a Pop Up fair in Tokyo, then to a celebration in Moscow, then Cape Town, Barcelona, Budapest, Vienna, Munich, Zurich, Amsterdam, London and so on, through many other towns and cities of Europe to the USA ending the day in Seattle. I stayed up for the whole 24 hours blogging live on event after event as each opened and closed, by the end I could hardly move from my chair!"

"Yes, it was exhausting," Sally Burdon co-convenor agreed, "but it was such an extraordinary worldwide movement that did so much good, so we are doing it again this year! It was a great example of what ordinary people can do with relatively few resources. The power of about 1,800 booksellers is inspiring.  Our colleagues around the world took their special books and created Pop Up Rare Book events in many unexpected places – in woolsheds, on boats, on skyscrapers - showing rare books to people who don't usually come into contact with them.  Most importantly we were raising money for UNESCO's work promoting literacy in South Sudan."

Fill an Empty Bookcase and change our world! At each event a Symbolic Empty Bookcase is the focus. Each Pop Up Rare Book Fair will display a poster of an Empty Bookcase and ask people to buy a symbolic "spine" to fill the bookcase. Each "spine" represents a book to be given to children in South Sudan by UNESCO's ambassador in South Sudan, film star Forest Whitaker's Peace and Development Initiative. Literacy is a fundamental human right and the very heart of our work as ILAB booksellers. Literacy rates in South Sudan are appalling. 84% of women are illiterate and 70% of men – what hope is there for these individuals, this country or even the world as a whole with literacy rates like this?

On April 23 last year booksellers raised well over 10,000Euros, which bought 1,930 books and 500 pens and paper which were delivered to South Sudanese children. This year the two women booksellers from Australia and Germany and their colleagues in the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers will pop up again from Australia to Japan to the Republic of Korea, South Africa, all over Europe to the United States to hopefully raise even more.

Join the rare booksellers on April 23 this year and help create a more literate world.

Contact:  Barbara van Benthem Email  Telephone: +49 170 2111406

Sally Burdon – Email  Telephone: + 61 (0) 2 62515191

More information about the Forest Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative in South Sudan

Follow the ILAB booksellers live on ilabpopupbookfairs.blogspot.de

More information about ILAB's World Book and Copyright Day Plans for 2016

More information about ILAB  the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers

SOURCE International League of Antiquarian Booksellers

Related Links

https://www.ilab.org