Antwerp, Bibliotheek Permeke, 23 April 2015 - A review in pictures

Bibliotheek Permeke in Antwerp (Belgium) is an inspirational place. Built 10 years ago right in the middle of a deprived part of the city it was a farsighted first step in the city’s endeavour to clear the slums and improve the lives of its people. Now, a decade later, every day thousands of readers visit the library - ideally by bike - to borrow books, use the internet, to read and get information and drink coffee in the glass pub. Bibliotheek Permeke is a symbol that books change lives and that the power of reading is vital and essential.

On April 23 Erik Tonen and Peter Everaers met the library visitors in the foyer, raised funds for the UNESCO literacy projects in South Sudan and showed rare and fine books to the readers they would otherwise very likely never have seen.

More pictures:

1.15 pm, Antwerp - Books across the borders on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day, 23 April 2015

Two antiquarian booksellers, one trading in Belgium and the other in The Netherlands, decided an international boundary lying between them wasn’t going to stop them participating in ILAB’s celebration of UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day.

Erik Tonen usually enters “his more than elegant antiquarian bookshop” on the Kloosterstraat in Antwerp greeting the shelves with a “Good morning, books” (Marc Didden in De Standaard). Around 30 kilometres northwards, in Ter Hole you will usually meet Peter Everaers of Secundus Antiquarian Booksellers, dealing with fine books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera on the history, literature and art of Zeeland and Flanders. Today the two colleagues are holding an ILAB Pop Up Book Fair at the Bibliotheek Permeke in Antwerp.