STORY BY CORIE LYNN
While people passed out candy and cards on Valentine’s Day, the staff of Forsyth Library had a different gift in mind.
Kylie McCarthy and Brittney Squire of Forsyth’s Outreach Services set up a table on February 14th for an event called Blind Date with a Book.
“We picked out twenty books from the library, we wrapped them up, and put little descriptions on them or pictures,” said McCarthy, who is a Student Outreach Assistant at Forsyth.
These books, completely covered in brown paper, were displayed on the table in the Memorial Union. Across the paper, the staff wrote short descriptions of each plot using phrases such as “war stories,” “mastermind,” and “survival.”
Many of these descriptions did not depict the love stories one would expect to find on Valentine’s Day.
“We have a few romantic [books], a lot of mystery, murder, adventure, fantasy,” McCarthy said, “We wanted to stay clear of really all romantic since it’s Valentine’s Day.”
One student, Olivia, enjoyed how uni que the concept of Blind Date with a Book was.
““I just thought it was pretty cool, actually. The blind date, I thought, actually, it was maybe like an actual date, but then I was like, this is kind of different,” said Olivia, “You see the books are literally wrapped; you don’t know what’s in them, so that’s pretty cool. I just liked this one, the book that I picked because it was a murdering one. [The description said] ‘Don’t fall asleep on this murder novel,’ and I love murder mysteries.”
Though the staff of Forsyth wanted to provide students with a good book, the goal of the outreach program, according to Brittney Squire who is the Outreach Services Specialist, was to use Blind Date with a Book to bring the library to students.
“Really we were just looking to find more ways to get out of the library to talk with students and get some of the materials out there for them. We just thought that this would be a great way to be where students are and then to provide them with a way to interact with the library materials not in the library,” Squire said.
This goal was met as numerous students stopped in the Union to pick up their next read and become better acquainted with what Forsyth Library has to offer.