District library promotes reading at PITEX

Neha Saini

Tribune news service

Amritsar, December 10

In a first, the district library, Rani Ka Bagh, put up a stall at the PITEX that concluded here on Monday.

The trade fair attracts huge crowd every year for five days.

Librarian Prabhjot Sandhu set up the stall to reach out to people with a message of encouraging reading and making libraries a community hub.

“The purpose of setting up a stall at PITEX was to make the people realise the value of books and libraries. It was surprising that many did not even know that there was a district library in the city,” said Sandhu.

Over the five days, Sandhu and her team of volunteers gave books, free memberships and presentation on outreach programmes initiated by the district library.

“We told the people about the digitisation process at the library. We have also access to national archives of India’s digital library. Several reading programmes being held by us were also presented. We witnessed a massive footfall, especially kids,” she added. The District library team carried out a signature campaign for supporting the national reading mission as well.

Last day draws huge crowd

The concluding day of PITEX turned out to be crowd puller as the fair witnessed a footfall of over 50,000.

This year, close to 2.6 lakh visitors visited the fair. The most popular stalls at the international arcade were from Thailand.

“We got over 20 stalls from Thailand and these did the best business among the international stalls.

Exhibitors from Thailand were so encouraged by the response that they are expected to increase the number of stalls next year,” said an official.

This year, consumer items, including furniture and home utility products, also received a good response from buyers. The Rajasthani food stalls were the most popular with foodies at PITEX.