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With the support of Beirut World Book Capital, the new book program of “The Lebanese Book Club”, launched almost a year ago aims at promoting cultural diversity, dialogue, living together, and non-violent peace building.The program monitors important monthly book releases in the human sciences field: Sociology, politics, history, psychology, literature, arts, philosophy, and religious studies.This project plans on compiling new releases titles in a monthly bulletin that will be sent to the members of the club and book lovers. Every month, four titles will be selected and a reading and discussion forum will be organized. The outcome will be recorded and sent to the members and mentioned countries. Periodical forums will be organized in different areas, universities, schools and cultural clubs. Authors of selected books will also be invited to the forums and meetings thus allowing them to introduce their work and their role in promoting the mentioned values.
It would be interesting to gather materials produced during those forums and publish them online. Moreover, several groups of information and literacy geeks have been contemplating the idea of creating an online Lebanese book club, through online forums for book discussions and ebooks production to discuss. This would encourage the reprint of out-of-stock books, as well as provide educational content at reduced, even free, prices to a large market of developing countries.
On their Facebook group, the Lebanese Book Club says: “Well... In a world, or better said, in a society where books are under-appreciated, there are those who take pride in their own ignorance, and those who admit their own emptiness! Pity...
This group is for those who take pride in their culture, their love for books and for words. It is for those who appreciate the book as the essence and basic need for our evolution... If you like to read, join us, discuss the books you've read, get recommendations of books you might like, or just meet friends who share the same passion for reading!”
Hibr.Me
Hibr.me (ÍÈÑ áÈäÇäí) (Lebanese Ink) released their third paper issue. Their website, still in beta version, has been exponentially improving in terms of innovation of design and quality of content. This ICT startup is aiming to serve as a large-scale independent (unaffiliated to any sectarian or political group) youth & citizen media outlet in Lebanon that works in print (publishing a monthly free distribution newspaper), online (with regular content, discussions, multimedia, online collaborations, and more), and in person (with regular events, workshops, competitions, and other activities). Hibr is powered by young people while engaging all communities in Lebanon and the Lebanese diaspora community worldwide, and most content is licensed under a Creative Commons license to facilitate non-profit sharing of whatever information and content we create. They are building on that network and platform in order to engage community organizations around the country along with students and faculty from university campuses around Lebanon.
Hibr.Me started as Sawtashabab.Org in April 2009. In a mere six weeks (April-June, 2009), we mobilized a team of university students from several campuses in Lebanon to create a newspaper that got co-published with two of the main news outlets in Lebanon plus 5,000 copies distributed through our network of local collaborators (total over 50,000 copies), produce videos that got aired during one of the top talk shows in the country, and have people reporting live on election day around the country through live-blogging, live-twittering and mobile-applications (Sharek961).
The leadership team was key to the success of this initiative and was one of those dream teams you only get to work with so often. Through creative problem solving, enthusiastic motivation and effective project management inspired by Silicon Valley Culture, Communication and Strategies, they successfully launched one of the first efforts towardsdisaster communication and information and media literacy startup using innovative techniques such as mobile technologies and social media networks. But the real added value to this initiative is its large network of contributors in the MENA region including Egypt, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, West Bank and Gaza. They are the ones who are making the news every day. They were later granted a reasonable amount of money which allowed them to launch www.Hibr.Me
