The library recently announced a contest offering a prize for anyone who could get closest to guessing the total number of books in the library before this coming Friday.

Librarians will announce the winners on January 18.

The winner will receive a basket full of school supplies and books. “[The prize is] The ‘School Supplies Surprise Supreme!’” Sydney Tucker (12, J+C) said. “Yes I made up this name myself, and yes, I know it’s a crazy and funny prize title! But hey, that’s part of my fun. These prizes are baskets full of awesome school supplies and books.”

 Tucker came up with the idea for the contest.

“I remember coming into the library and being fascinated with how many books we had,” Tucker said.

Tucker said that she created the contest because she wanted to challenge students to look around and think about things that they may not usually think about.

“The contest is to challenge the brains that usually come into the library to be aware of their surroundings and realize that ‘Hey, these are a lot of books,’” Tucker said.

Additionally, Tucker hopes to promote the library and help draw students’ attention to the resources they have at their fingertips.

“We want to advertise the library and have people recognize the value and popularity of the library,” Tucker said. 

Students may submit a different guess to the library every day until the end of the contest.

“We have gotten a ton of submissions! I’m so happy and so excited!” Tucker said. “I come into the library [and] I see a full pot of guesses!”

“Toronto: book stacks at Toronto Reference Library” by The City of Toronto on Flickr is licensed under CC BY 2.0. No changes were made to the original image. Use of the image does not indicate photographer endorsement of the article. For the full license, click here.