The Green Spine Book Fair 2014

To continually provide support to the research and learning needs of the entire DLSU academic community, the Libraries organized The Green Spine Book Fair 2014, an annual event, now on its third year, that serves as a venue for faculty members, administrators and even students to select and recommend books and other materials for possible acquisition of the library. 

This year’s theme “Creating Synergy: Finding a Parallel Place for Print, E-Books and Human Books in Academic Libraries,” aimed at promoting the value of information sources in all formats and allow members of the academic community to explore the use of materials in other media aside from the printed materials that they have been used to. 

Like previous Green Spine book fairs, there were also other activities on the side such as symposiums, lectures and book launching which were opened to the public.

The fair kicked off in the morning of August 12, 2014 with an opening program and the formal launch of the Libraries' mobile optimized website. In the afternoon of the same day a symposium entitled “Sizing Up Your Collection: Approaches in Assessing and Developing Your Library’s Resources" was conducted with over seventy (70) participants from all types of libraries attending. The book launching of Allan Popa’s “Laan” and Mesandel Arguelles’ “Pilas ng Papel”, co-hosted by the DLSU Publishing House, Literature Department,  highlighted the second day of the fair which was followed by a lecture on MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses, sponsored by the American Corner-Manila. The launching of the Human Library concluded the event on the third day, which introduced the participants to the concept of the human/living book. Human/Living books are types of people who are usually subject to stereotyping and prejudices. 

To add flavor to the fair while at the same time promoting learning and knowledge sharing, games and contests were also offered like the very popular Trivia Challenge and the Selfienomenon Photo Contest. 

Truly, the Green Spine Book Fair proved that The Learning Commons embodies a “parallel place” where individuals interact and collaborate, discover new concepts, and learn while having fun.