LAHORE: A large number of students and teachers thronged the Oval ground of the Government College University where the annual book fair began on Monday.

GCU Vice-Chancellor Dr Khaleequr Rahman inaugurated the three-day fair in the presence of eminent writer Intizar Husain, critic Prof Khwaja Muhammad Zakariya and Canadian forensic expert Prof Dr Harpal S Buttar.

Dr Rehman said books didn’t lose their significance even in the age of information and communication technologies. “Books in hard form leave everlasting impressions on the minds of readers. The vision and knowledge you get by reading books, you can never have it by just reading reviews and summaries on the internet. Personally, I never enjoyed reading books on a cellphone or a computer,” he said.

The vice chancellor requested each publisher to increase discount on books keeping in view that the buyers would be ‘students’.

He also directed the academic departments to purchase latest books on their subjects concerned from the book fair and made them available to students and teachers.

Dr Rehman also purchased books on the subjects related to Islam, literature and physics for his personal collection.

Earlier, GCU Chief Librarian Abdul Waheed said the book fair had brought more than 0.25 million books of science, religion, literature, art and culture under one-roof. He said more than 45 international and national publishers had set up stalls at the fair.

Talking to the media, Ahsan Nawaz, a publisher, said they had been coming to the GCU book fair for the last three years, but this time the response from students and teachers was much better and encouraging.

He said their real buyers were the students who were preparing for CSS, PMS and PCS examinations, adding they were expecting more response from students in the next two days.

He said students had become intelligent enough as they first read reviews about various books on internet and then purchased them.

Shahbaz Ahmed, another publisher, said they were offering the best price at the fair.

GCU Library Society President Muhammad Rizwan said the book fair had been an excellent experience even if you didn’t have a temptation to buy books.

“It makes you aware of the latest books available on various topics,” he added.

Quoting a data compiled by the society, he said more than 5,700 books were sold on the opening day.

Zile Huma, a BSc (Hons) student, said book fairs should be held in universities at least thrice a year because it was very difficult for female students to spend hours in Urdu Bazaar for purchasing books.

“Here at GCU’s book fair, we can spend even a full day in choosing books of our interest,” she said.

The book fair will remain open till Oct 29 at 5pm.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2014