By Bonny Burrows
The magic of books has been rediscovered at Pakenham Secondary College.
Thanks to librarian Janine Lawrence’s bright idea of gift-wrapping books to conceal their covers and blurbs, books are now flying off the shelves.
Ms Lawrence said prior to the ‘blind date with a book’ initiative students were becoming disengaged from reading.
“We’ve got a huge collection of books here but the students wander around and make a judgement based on the cover of a book,” she said.
“Others say ‘there’s no books here’ simply because they won’t venture out of their comfort zone.”
Determined to change this, and inspired by an article she saw in a librarian magazine, Ms Lawrence decided to take action by hiding the books’ contents.
Now, new additions to the library and old classics which previously gained dust on the shelf are wrapped and placed on a table at the library’s entrance.
In a lucky dip of sorts, readers chose based solely on the title and a few key words about the plot.
The initiative was only implemented on 1 May, but Ms Lawrence said she was blown away by the response.
Only one book has been returned by an unsatisfied student.
“It’s gone nuts. Within one period all the books went,” Ms Lawrence said.
“It was almost like a birthday present … students were asking if they could keep them.”
Encouraging reading for not much effort and only a small cost, Ms Lawrence said she hoped to inspire other schools to consider the ‘blind date with a book’ idea.
“Students often have pre-conceived ideas and the cover of a book can influence a decision so much. It’s nice to take these factors out and have the books speak for themselves,” she said.
