THE 2020" BOOK FRIEND" AWARDS HAVE FOUND THEIR OWNERS.

The "Book Friend" Awards, the first of which was held this year by Ankara Social Sciences University Library and Documentation Department, have found their owners. The people who borrowed the most books from the library in 2020 were awarded with a ceremony attended by the University Rector Prof. Dr. Musa Kazım Arıcan. The first three people who received degrees in the categories of" Student "," Staff "and" Academician" were presented with a certificate of gratitude and books selected according to their interests. Secretary-General Saim Durmuş presented their gifts to the third-placed ones, Vice-Rector Prof. Dr. Mehmet Hakan Türkçapar presented their gifts to the second-placed ones and the Rector Prof. Dr. Musa Kazim Arican gave their gifts to the first-placed winners.

Winners of the award

Third place: Prof. Dr. Asli Akay, Selda Nergiz, Cagla Esmer. Second place: Dr. Cihan Kilic, Seda Kotan, Cuma Yavuz. First place: Prof. Dr. Sutay Yavuz, Ahmet Durmus Tasdemir and Tolga Aydın

Arıcan delivered a short speech.

The Rector Prof. Dr. Musa Kazım Arıcan, who gave a short speech at the award ceremony, said in a nutshell after thanking the Library department: If you excuse me, I would like to address those here as "friends of the book". From time to time, I have thought to myself what I would like to be if I were not an academic. The answer I give is either "Librarian" or "Bookseller", because there are many librarians and booksellers who have influenced the history of thought. David Hume in the West and Al-Kindi in our history are the first names that come to mind. Libraries have functioned as carriers of culture and civilization in the world. The most prominent example of this is the "Library of Alexandria". It is said that there are more than 200 thousand books. And the first thing the invaders did was always burn down and destroy libraries. Even this negative situation is important in terms of telling what the library means. Interestingly, the concept of Library is formed by the combination of two Arabic and Persian words. Kütüp means books in Arabic; hane means house in Persian.

Nowadays, the library is developing rapidly towards "digital librarianship". But this will never diminish the importance of classical librarianship because libraries are also means of reading. There are many differences between reading books in a library and reading from a computer screen in a room with many items in it in terms of deciphering the text. These two places will never have the same effect on a person.

The most beautiful gift in all periods of history has always been a book because even a single book can sometimes change a person's life from beginning to end. One of the examples of this is Prof. Dr. Eva De Stained Glass Meyerovitch, who took the name Eve after she became a Muslim. She meets Mevlana while reading the book "The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam" by Muhammad Iqbal, which was gifted to her. Then she reads all the books of Mevlana and translates them into French. She finally converted and paved the way for many French converting to Islam. She was buried in Konya in line with her will when she died. As seen in this example, a book can change the life of a person, or even a society as a whole."