ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — You have a tough day at work, an exam to study for, a presentation to give, or you just got up on the wrong side of the bed.
Finding ways to escape from those rigours of everyday life is not always easy.
Until now …
An initiative called Book Box was started at Memorial University at the first part of August to help all of these types of anguish get dealt with in a means that a lot of people find relaxing … and sometimes educational.
“Since we got this set up, there has been good traffic here,’’ Killol Chokshi, one of the committee that did the leg work dating back to this time a year ago, to get the project off the ground.
“We have the books, displays, couches and chairs, a place for people to relax and read an offering from our Book Box,’’ he added.
The team is comprised of Chokshi, Navjotpal Kaur, Dr. Aimée Surprenant, dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Carol Sullivan, manager, fellowships and awards.
The group applied for several grants to fund the project and were successful in securing money from Taking It Global, a project funded by the federal government.
This allowed them to purchase books, shelves and a cabinet for the project. All they had to do was find a space to put it and after looking at three locations around Memorial, they decided the hallway outside the graduate studies and research grants offices would be the perfect location.
“There are a variety of books here: fiction, non-fiction, N.L. specific, biographies, educational items and children’s books,” Chokshi said.
“We even put in a strict user policy that the Book Box will contain no curriculum books. This is strictly recreation vs. education; otherwise something to do in your spare time,’’ he added.
The best part is there are no fees for the books and literally, if you want to take a book, you can do so, and bring it back when you are done. In addition, if you have books that you have finished using at home, you can leave them in the cabinet when you take one and consider it a fair exchange.
Organizers consider the location a great one for graduate students as it is open to all students, faculty and staff of Memorial University.
It is publicly available in the hallway between the Research Grants and Graduate Students offices on the second floor of the Bruneau Centre.
Chokshi is a research co-ordinator, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Discipline of Emergency Medicine, Faculty of Medicine.
