Promoting reading culture: Book club for busy people

The poster was presented at Library Leads Forum in Qatar on March 19th 2023.

Abstract: Research reveals that students’ reading habits have a significant impact on their academic achievement. Library plays an important role in promoting the reading culture and helping students become lifelong learners. 

The poster presents Book Club for Busy People, an outreach program run at the CMU-Q library, and describes its purpose, organization, essential elements and ways of measuring success. University students, busy with assignments, exams and extracurricular activities, have little time to read books. Instead of running a traditional book club, the CMU-Q library offers a new approach where students read only a chapter or an excerpt of a book and get together to discuss it in depth and develop their own interpretation. Run by students and for students once a month, the library outreach program builds a community of readers open to explore diverse stories, engage in eye-opening conversations and gain a better understanding of what they read. Librarian supervisors serve as ambassadors to the fascinating world of ideas and enablers of cultural learning, knowledge exchange and perspective building. 

This project is a true example of library leadership in community building and cultural diplomacy.