Multicultural book exchange is a success

Multicultural+book+exchange+is+a+success

Samantha Weber, Editor in chief

On Monday, March 20, there was a cultural book exchange that was open to all students.
People were encouraged to bring a book, specifically one that is unique to a specific culture to exchange with other attendees. If one does not have a cultural book or is not willing to part with one, students were encouraged to bring book ideas as an alternative.
The book exchange took place in a very fitting location, the Multicultural Student Lounge. This was just remodeled over the past summer to be a more inclusive space for those on campus, specifically for minority groups.
There are clubs for about every language offered at Mercyhurst to try and provide more opportunities for the students to get immersed in the culture of the language they are studying and not just the language itself.
Thankfully, due to the wide variety of courses offered through the REACH curriculum here at Mercyhurst, students most likely had a number of books that were about other cultures that could be used in this exchange.
Students were encouraged to use books that they already had, or if students did not have any to rent from the library as the books will be returned to the original owner in a few weeks anyway.
Truth Arnold, a junior anthropology major, was the coordinator of this event. They are very passionate about books and think that they should be a vital part of everyone’s life.
Arnold opened up the event by talking about why they wanted to host a book exchange and basically talked about their love for books.
Jess Hubert was in attendance as well and she was the one who led the remodeling process of the multicultural lounge. As part of the remodeling, there is a new library that was added to the lounge. Students are more than welcome to check out a book from the multicultural lounge. In each book should be a QR code that can be scanned and the quick form filled out to act as the checkout process.
Since March is Women’s History Month, there is a featured section on the side table and all the books are either written by women or about women.
In two weeks there will be another exchange, or technically re-exchange of the books one borrowed from someone else. This allows everyone the opportunity to discuss what they have read with someone who already has read the same book and talk about their opinions of it. At the event, Arnold said, “Ideally you guys will be able to talk about what you liked from the book, or if you hated it why you did not like it.”
Students brought books from all different cultures and all different genres to exchange.
Arnold also provided a pamphlet about how to get a library card at one’s local library. Another great online resource to use is called Libby where you can rent e-books to read just like one would at a library, but for online books.