Sibu Rural District Council actively promoting reading to public

SIBU (Sept 20): The Sibu Rural District Council (SRDC) is actively playing its part to encourage reading among the people.

Its chairman Sempurai Petrus Ngelai said SRDC has four libraries, including Sibu Jaya Public Library and three rural libraries.

“Every year, we spend a certain amount of our budget to buy new books for our libraries.

“We also do not dispose of any old books from our libraries, and instead give them to the mini libraries that are set up in longhouses in the SRDC area.

“We believe that to read is to gain knowledge. Physical books are still equally interesting despite facing global competition from e-books,” he said.

He said this when officiating at the launch of the Big Bad Wolf Books sale at Sibu Jaya Public Library here yesterday, where imported books are offered up to 95 per cent discount until Sept 29.

Sempurai said such big scale book sales are quite rare in Sibu and that this could be considered among the first held here.

He thus hoped the people would take this opportunity to purchase their favourite books.

“Hopefully this would be our annual event. At least we could help students and parents to get books at discounted prices,” he said.

Also present were SRDC secretary Ng Siang Wei, Big Bad Wolf Books Business Development head Jeremy Ooi and Amcorp Sibu Jaya assistant general manager James Ho.