The Old Quarter Book Street attracts young readers in Hoi An. (Photo: QUOC BAO)
The Old Quarter Book Street is located in the old house yard area at 31 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street and 62 Bach Dang Street, adjacent to Hoang Van Thu Street in Minh An Ward, Hoi An City (Quang Nam), and was just opened on December 4, on the occasion of the 24th anniversary of Hoi An Ancient Town being recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage. The Book Street is implemented by the Hoi An City Center for Culture, Sports , Radio and Television in coordination with Truong Phuong Development Investment Joint Stock Company.
In the first phase, the book street was invested in decoration, landscape of bonsai space and six mobile bookcases to display, buy and sell books and serve readers with shelves and chairs for tourists and visitors. The mobile bookcases are designed to suit the space of the old town, can operate in all weather conditions with a variety of book genres and languages, helping book lovers comfortably experience and choose.
With a quiet space and slow pace of life, locals, students and tourists have a quiet intellectual space to enjoy good books, and it is also a place to meet friends, interact with artists, share their love of reading and develop a reading culture in the community.
Along with the project to develop the Old Quarter Book Street, publishers will have their own booths to display books, helping readers access many famous bookstores. According to the idea of the organizing committee, this is also a cultural space, where reading culture development activities take place such as book publishing, book introduction seminars, providing useful information or author exchange programs, introducing new works, organizing book festivals, art exhibitions and cultural experience programs for tourists to Hoi An, aiming to build public bookshelf models so that readers can exchange themselves.
For now, the Old Quarter Book Street opens from 7am to 9pm every day and is covered by free wifi for readers to use and also supports the publication of e-books.
According to Ms. Truong Thi Ngoc Cam, Director of the Center for Culture - Sports and Radio - Television of Hoi An city, the Old Quarter Book Street is a program with profound humanistic meaning, creating a lifestyle, reading habits, and a reading cultural space for participants, helping to connect and be a gathering place for book lovers in Hoi An as well as at home and abroad.
Although newly opened, the project has shown a sustainable development direction, creating a new tourism product, not only contributing to building the cultural tourism brand for Hoi An, serving the people of the city but also being a unique product of ancient town tourism, an interesting experience destination, helping tourists get information about Hoi An; promoting the cultural values of the ancient town, at the same time evoking and promoting the beauty of reading culture, understanding and following books, gradually building a learning society for the community.
According to the organizers of the Old Quarter Book Street, although it has great potential to become a highlight in the journey of tourists to Hoi An and in the spiritual life of the people of the Old Quarter. However, for the project to be able to develop, it needs the attention and facilitation of authorities at all levels and the participation of the community.
Only then will the book street become lively, spread effectively and maintain long-term operation. Currently, the number of mobile bookcases, which have only been piloted with six vehicles, is too small, while the space for organizing them is still limited compared to the needs of readers and tourists. In the second phase of the project, the organizing committee plans to design 15 to 20 mobile bookcases and gradually create permanent book display spaces. However, this requires mobilizing investment resources, especially having a mechanism and coordination policy from the Hoi An city government.
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