A mini-library is provided to a coffee shop in Phnom Penh by the One Book-One Community Project. PHOTO SUPPLIED
The One Book-One Community Project has launched a campaign to provide mini-libraries in the form of specially designed four-tier bookcases with roofs sheltering them and built-in donation boxes that will be placed at public locations throughout the capital.
At least 25 bookcases in this style will be deployed in cafes and other restaurants throughout Phnom Penh in order to promote reading and literacy in the Kingdom.
Sok Lak, co-founder of the Scholar Library and the One Book-One Community Project, told The Post that the bookcases would be set up for free in cafes and restaurants to lend books to their customers while they are on the premises.
He said that the deployment of these bookcases is to promote and improve reading in Cambodia following the mission of the One Book-One Community Project, which will be implemented from the beginning of 2023 onwards.
“We have now put some bookcases in some shops. We are speeding up the production of all 25 bookcases to install at target cafes in Phnom Penh,” he said.
Lak said that these bookcases play an important role in promoting the campaign as well as the culture of reading to the public, and they will also assist the project by raising funds to support the campaign more effectively.
He said that his project wants to encourage the public to value and understand the importance of reading books.
Lak said that if the campaign in Phnom Penh has enough support then more bookcases will be made to distribute to cafes and restaurants in other towns and provinces in Cambodia.
“You can donate as much or as little as you’d like to jointly promote reading in communities across all 25 provinces. Taking this opportunity, our team would also like to thank all of the members of the public who have donated money to help promote this activity, including those who have cooperated by providing a place to display the bookshelves,” he said.
Pang Vannak, an employee of a cafe in Toul Tompong commune, said that the bookcase design was attractive and he felt it would prove popular because it featured novels for entertainment as well as philosophy books for those who are more serious-minded.
Vannak expressed his hopes that the bookcase will contribute to literacy in the Kingdom and encourage his customers to read good books.
“Having this bookcase in a cafe is a good thing for the general public, especially the youths who come to get food and coffee in my cafe when their public schools are on holidays. So there will be a lot of youths who come here, sometimes all day long, and when they see the books they will probably read them because the books chosen are interesting titles,” he said.
Vannak said that the bookcases also would have broad appeal because they have books in both Khmer and English and are totally free of charge to use if someone just wants to browse through one of the books on offer.
According to the One Book-One Community Project, the books on display in the bookcase will be changed regularly in order to keep the interest of the cafes regular customers who might get bored seeing the same titles on each visit.
Java Creative Cafe owner Dana Langois told The Post that since opening her coffee shop in 2000, the arts have been at the heart of everything she has done with her business, so it makes sense that she would want to sponsor one of the bookcases.
She said that her shop has been working and supporting Cambodian art for more than 22 years, and providing a place to install a bookcase to improve people’s literacy and knowledge is something that she agrees with and is happy to participate in.
“I really enjoy and appreciate the work of Lak, who is actually an expert and helped us create a small library at Java Creative Cafe prior to the launch of this bookcase project. I am just happy to be able to support this important project for readers and writers from now on and in the future,” she said.
Reading has many benefits beyond the basic process of gaining knowledge through exposure to new information. It also makes the brain more agile, develops the intellect and critical thinking skills, increases motivation and creativity, expands one’s vocabulary and mastery of language and makes it possible for a person to absorb large amounts of complex information far more efficiently than any other method known to us, including audio-visual media or new technologies.
In other words, nobody has ever gained mastery of engineering or become a physicist by watching YouTube to date and it seems likely that no one ever will.
Reading remains the primary route to true expertise in the most difficult categories of knowledge and the more you read, the better you get at it, whether it’s novels or textbooks. And the better you are at reading, the better you’ll be at high level learning, according to Kok Ros, director of the Department of Books and Reading at the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.
Ros told The Post that reading a book can be done anywhere a person is comfortable with it and cafes and restaurants are natural choices for the activity.
“We support this work and all cooperation on it. When books are available everywhere, it will certainly encourage more people to read them. We need to spread the word so that the public understands and knows the value and benefits of reading. There are many who don’t know this and they simply do not even try to read,” he said.
