Local Weyburnite Leslie Robertson was busy purging her bookshelf at home recently when she came up with the idea of a Weyburn-based book exchange program.

She thought of the idea after she had given away a number of her own books and still found that she had many left that she wanted to give to someone in the community that may be interested in reading them.

"Most of us have been spending a lot more time inside and I've been going through all of my books. So I decided to pack a book bag to see if there would be anyone else that would be interested in exchanging books," said Robertson.

The local book exchange will help people to refresh their reading material without adding to their already overstuffed bookshelves.

With both of her parents being teachers by profession and writers and poets by passion, Robertson grew up as an avid reader and has recently married a man that holds the same value for his book collection.

"Books were pretty sacred in my home growing up so you never threw away a book," Robertson told. "Even every year for Christmas my mother would buy us all books. However, I tend to get sentimentally attached to books so I've decided that I should only keep my favourite authors and the rest need to be passed along for others to enjoy."

After her mother passed away two years ago she inherited many of her treasured books but now Robertson is moving towards more audio and digital books. Her hope is that her books will bring people in the community as much joy as she felt when she read them all.

The Travelling Book Bag is filled by Robertson when it is returned by the local readers. She will be filling the breathable mesh bag with 10 books of her own and requests others to share as many of their own books that they no longer need for other people in the community to read and enjoy.

She asks that all of the books be sanitized before repacking the washable bag and she is willing to pick up the bag whenever people are done with it.

"I am going to be starting a second bag very soon so 10 more books will be coming off my shelf," explained Robertson. "I am also going to start one for younger readers like teens and tweens because my kids have outgrown a lot of their books. So that will be coming in the next week or so."

Robertson said that she has been helping with other projects such as the Purse Project where she delivered hygiene items in purses to women's shelters in Regina. However due to the pandemic that project has been unable to run for the last year or so. That is why she was so excited to start up her own project to help spread positive energy within the community.

She stated that some of her favourite books are biographies, autobiographies, history, and true crime stories. But she does like to enjoy the odd romance novel as well.

"When people are done with the book bags and have wiped down all of the books they can hang the bag on their doorknob and I then I will go and retrieve them and then deliver them to the next person. Of course, I will wear a mask and protective gear to ensure safety for everyone. I'll try to make the transition as quickly as possible and I have had no contact with anyone so far," Robertson stated.

If you would like to be a part of the Travelling Book Bag program in Weyburn please visit the Facebook group page and request to join the group. You can message Leslie Robertson through her group to set up a time to exchange the book bag. Happy reading!