Mister Spock was famous for his Vulcan mind melds—reading other people’s minds—on the original Star Trek series. And while the Starfleet Alberni Deep Space Port doesn’t boast of Spock’s talents, they are about to embark on some serious reading.
The Starfleet chapter challenges all other clubs and societies in the Alberni Valley to boldly go to the Port Alberni branch of the Vancouver Island Regional Library and explore the galaxy of knowledge and recreational reading by joining the new adult summer reading club.
“The majority of our group has already signed up,” said Lt. Gillian Shearwater, who last week was joined by crewman apprentice Vicky Bellis, resident Elizabeth Tawzer and Ally of the Federation Janis Cameron to check out the selection at the library.
“This is a natural angle for our group, where ongoing education and the quest for knowledge is part of our foundation,” Shearwater said.
“In Starfleet itself, Starfleet Academy currently offers over 3000 mini-courses free to members—so the commitment extends to the international level.”
Books some of the group’s members plan on reading for the challenge range from physics to the moon and solar systems, Star Trek tomes to cultivating vegetables and raising chickens.
Anything goes when it comes to the adult summer reading club, library manager Michael de Leur said.
“You can read anything at all, including newspapers magazine articles, websites, e-mail, etc. If you listen to audiobooks, that’s comparable. And there is material available for downloading off the library website,” he said.
The reading club started on July 2, but there is still time to sign up. More than two dozen adults had already signed up the week before the club began, de Leur said.
The club runs until Aug. 20. During the seven-week period readers mark their calendars each day they read for a minimum of 15 minutes.
For every seven days that they read or listen to an audiobook for at least 15 minutes, they can come into the branch and fill out a ballot for the grand prize draw (each reader can fill out a maximum of seven draw entries throughout the summer).
The grand prize will be a mix of fiction and non-fiction books and will be awarded near the end of August.
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