CYPRUS: ‘Knowledge chain’ transfers UCY books to new library

Hundreds of students and volunteers responded to the University of Cyprus’ call to be “part of the knowledge chain” transporting 600 books from the old library to state-of-the-art facilities in the new campus.

The last 600 books, or 20% of the library’s stock, were transferred hand-to-hand along a human chain which ran 4.23 km from the university library’s Nicosia campus at Kallipoleos Street to the ‘Stelios Ioannou’ library facilities.

Volunteers started handing books to one another accompanied by the sound of the Philharmonic orchestras of the Police Force, the National Guard and ELDYK at around 3pm in the afternoon.

The last book – Homer’s Odyssey – arrived just after 5pm.

UCY dean Constantinos Christofides told reporters prior to the event, the first book to find its way to the new library was Charles Darwin’s ‘On the origin of species’, and the last one would be Homer’s ‘Odyssey’.

UCY’s new library is to open for the student community and the general public on 23 November.

Any material from the media coverage of the event, electronical and printed, will be collected by the University and placed in a crypt within the Library Centre which is to be opened in the year 2089, when the University of Cyprus will be celebrating its 100th anniversary.