Travelling library: The two Indians on a road trip to promote books

Satabdi Misra (right) and Akshaya Rautaray (second, right) with the Walking Bookfairs Book Truck in Kerala. They arrive in Mumbai later this month [Image courtesy: Mid-day . com]... A travelling library for India By Preeti Singh |Posted 13-Jan-2016, Mid-day

"The two Indians on a road trip to promote books." By Vikas Pandey, BBC News, 19 March 2016
Library on wheels
"We have sold around 2,000 books so far. And we keep getting our stock replenished in big cities," Ms Mishra says.
But selling books is not their primary goal. They also lend them out, and say their biggest ambition is actually to engage people in conversations about the importance of reading. continue reading BBC . COM

Two youngsters, 20 states and a truck full of books, Last updated on: January 22, 2016
Armed with 4000 books in a truck, two youngsters have set on a unique journey to promote the love of reading across 20 states in India. Their journey will inspire you too! ...
The Walking BookFairs truck at Tea Gardens in Nilambur, Mysore. "It is ironical that there are so many literary festivals happening all over the country but less and less people are reading books. There are very few bookshops in India and no bookshops in smaller towns or villages. ...
"Most bookshops are shops selling textbooks and stationery. Even the bookshops that one finds in bigger towns or cities stock mostly best sellers with zero discounts offered to general readers. ...
"Though there are many good authors in India, many books and authors are not able to reach people everywhere because of a lack of effective distribution chain and because there are no bookshops," says Akshaya, who along with Shatabdi has set up a 'Walking BookFairs' store in Bhubaneswar." ...
Shatabdi and Akshaya have three publishers supporting their tour -- HarperCollins India, Pan Macmillan India and Parragon Publishers. ...
"Even with their support, this turned out to be a very expensive tour, but we decided to go ahead with it as we felt very strongly about it," says Shatabdi. ...
Currently, they are in Karnataka after touring Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. ...continue reading  rediff . com

...
A Book for Everyone By Kasturi Ray | Bhubaneswar Published: 30th March 2015 How it all began ...
Once during a pleasure trip to Koraput district, both the youngsters, being avid readers, felt it was places like this that need to be told about the kind of books that are available for youngsters. “We decided to start our project from Koraput. We carried books in backpacks and spread those on even pavements and roadsides in the remote villages. We never thought about the response but we were pleasantly surprised to see that people were immediately drawn towards our stall. Children came in large numbers and they said they were seeing story books for the first time,’’ said Akshaya with a smile. They have covered 22 out of 30 districts in the State exhibiting books of all genres and for all ages in the past one-and-a-half years. ...
Investment: Ask them about the investment and Satabdi says not much. “In fact, we bought a second hand van too. Otherwise, we just bought some books on credit and carried them in backpacks to places where we thought we could reach out to people who have been deprived of reading. How much do books cost? But we have been able to sustain so far because we earn as much to live a decent life,’’ she adds. Continue reading New Indian Express