Books at Half Price? Busan Library Launches 'Happy Book Sharing' to Revitalize Local Bookstores

Books Finished Reading, Exchange for 50% Book Vouchers at 25 Local Bookstores

Collected Books Donated Again to Small Libraries and Welfare Centers... Promoting Book Circulation

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Half-price books? A project that refunds half the price when returning a finished book is being launched in Busan. This means that the price paid at bookstores will effectively be 50% of the retail price.

Busan City (Acting Mayor Lee Byung-jin) Busan Library announced on the 26th that it will launch the ‘Happy Book Sharing’ project to revitalize local bookstores starting March 29.

Until last year, the project was promoted by the Citizen Library, but from this year, Busan Library, the representative local library, will directly recruit participating bookstores and expand the project to 25 bookstores in the Busan area.

The ‘Happy Book Sharing’ project allows customers to bring books published since 2019 to any of the 25 participating bookstores and receive a refund of 50% of the book’s list price in the form of a bookstore exchange voucher. When customers revisit the same bookstore to use the voucher, they receive a discount on books.

The collected books are purchased by Busan Library and distributed to small libraries, welfare centers, and other facilities with limited access to reading. However, reference books, workbooks, comics, complete collections, multiple copies of the same book (two or more), and damaged books are excluded from the exchange program.

The city expects that increasing bookstore usage will help revive neighborhood bookstores, allow customers to get books at half price, and greatly contribute to the virtuous cycle of books through re-donation of collected books.

Acting Mayor Lee Byung-jin of Busan said, “Local bookstores struggling against large online bookstores will be revitalized, and collected books can be re-donated, establishing a culture of sharing through books.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.