A floating reservoir of knowledge

Pics by VK Shafeer

A vessel carrying thousands of titles that transcend geographical boundaries, aiming to share knowledge with those who visit onboard in different countries, is attracting children and their parents alike at the Port Sultan Qaboos from July 13.

They sail through a vast collection of diverse titles ranging from atlases, education, and dictionary to titles on medicine, science, education, cookery, sports, arts, and languages and faith, besides children’s titles.

MV Logos Hope, world’s largest floating book fair that travels between countries, was welcomed in Oman by Ministerial representatives and ambassadors of different countries in Oman and the gargantuan ship will remain in Muttrah till July 22.

This is the third time that the floating book fair is visiting Oman after its last visits to Oman in 2011 and 2013. Visitors are welcomed onboard from 4pm to 10pm and entry fee is Bz500 for adults while children below 12 are given free entry.

On an average, the book fair receives one million visitors on board every year with more than 5,000 titles on sale and till date, the vessel has called on at over 140 ports in more than 70 countries and sold more than 10,000,000 different books. More than 49 million people from across 480 different ports in more than 150 countries have visited MV Logos Hope.

The nearly 350 crew and other staff from more than 65 different nationalities are all volunteers serving in their professional capacity and include from seamen to cooks and from engineers to nurses and electricians.

Her next port of call is Salalah on July 27 and will be stationed there until August 3 from where she will be heading to Seychelles where books will be displayed from August 10 to 17 before heading to Mombasa in Kenya.

MV Logos Hope is a ship operated as a part of a faith based organisations by Gute Bücher für Alle. Built in 1973 as the ferry MV Gustav Vasa for service between Malmö and Travemünde and later operated as the MV Norröna providing a ferry service to the Faroe Islands, she was later converted into a moving book fair, the seafaring book fair is operated by the German non-profit group Good Books for All (GBA).