2 days ago
'Overwhelming response': 2,000 books left after Yale-NUS adoption drive, June 14 fair open to public, Singapore News
Yale-NUS College (YNC) is organising a book adoption and exchange fair on Saturday (June 14) for the public for the first time since the row over dumping books erupted in May.
More than 2,000 books will be put up for adoption and exchange from 9am to 3pm at the Central Library, NUS Libraries said in a Facebook post.
The first fair was held from May 28 to 30, but it was open only to the Yale-NUS alumni, staff and their guests.
A second adoption drive for the public was scheduled from May 31 to June 9, but due to "overwhelming response" for the first fair, the authorities decided not to go ahead with the second.
The fair for the public was thus pushed to June 14.
More than 8,500 books were available for adoption during the first fair, but that is down to 2,000 now.
One Yale-NUS alumni, who only wanted to be known only as James, told AsiaOne that it was great to see the overwhelming turnout for the May 28 fair and how "different books found good homes".
The 26-year-old shared that he had always been "strongly attached to the YNC Library and its books" and that he would browse the shelves when he had any excuse to.
He said he wanted to ensure that books previously called "too niche or academic" to be given away were available to collect.
But he said that some concerns remained unaddressed, particularly the library's lack of response to the student petition calling for open dialogue on their decision to "shred the books" and how NUS could adopt more collaborative decision-making in the future.
Another alumni, Ryan Yeo, shared on Instagram that he and other alumni had tried to push for more days to be open to the public.
In his post, he shared NUS Library was "worried about the potential large inflow of people" if they immediately opened the library up to the public. View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Ryan Yeo (@ryanyeokh)
Yeo added: "Hopefully it's enough for everyone to be able to grab a book or five, I can't bear to think of leftover books going into the shredder again..."
In May, Yale-NUS was in the eye of the storm after videos of books being discarded outside the library and collected by a recycling company went viral.
James added: "While the rehoming effort on NUS Libraries' part has been laudable, I do hope NUS also pays attention to the wider conversation surrounding the incident beyond the books themselves."
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