Libations and the pleasure of a good book are being mixed in a new type of programming piloted by the Meadville Public Library.
A chapter of the national Silent Book Club was established at the library hosted its first meeting on Sept. 10 at Chipper’s Pub on Chestnut St.
“We’re trying to foster a culture of reading and joy around reading,” said Gabby Miller, ’20, a community librarian at MPL. “The more we can get people reading in the community, the more people are talking about books, the more library books are being circulated. But in general, the more people reading, which is the goal.”
Jim Fitch, program coordinator at the library, described the initiative as an attempt to “promote a culture of readers.”
The pilot program initially started at the library, occurring every other week in the library’s third-floor community space throughout the summer. The low attendance drove Fitch to relocate the program, expanding out of the library and into the community in order to attract a wider audience.
“We thought, if we can’t bring the people to the books, let’s take the books to the people,” Fitch said.
A silent book club is different from a standard book club. Participants bring any book of their choosing and simply read, silently, with a group of others, with a dedicated time at the end to discuss what they read, if they choose to do so.
The goal of the club is to hopefully grow in attendance enough to become a weekly program, according to Miller.
The decision to host the club at Chipper’s stems from a desire to have an evening location that works best for people after work.
“It would be interesting to develop overlap between the folks who are maybe going to Chipper’s in the evening and also reading books,” Miller said. “I think that that crowd is someone we want to intentionally reach out to and help generate more readers and more discussion about reading, especially in a lively social space.”
Fitch agreed with Miller and added that the program is also meant to “stem back the tide of the decline in reading.”
The establishment of the program comes on the heels of a New York Times article that showed a decline in Americans who read for fun over the last 20 years.
The study the article focused on was completed by researchers from the University College London and the University of Florida who reported that “reading for pleasure on a given day fell to 16 percent in 2023 from a peak of 28 percent in 2004 — a drop of about 40 percent. It declined around 3 percent each year over those two decades.”
Meghna Vorisek, a member of the circulation staff at the library, was one of the attendees at the Chipper’s Sept. 10 Silent Book Club.
“It was a small crowd, but it was a nice time,” Vorisek said. “I think we actually stayed past 7:30 p.m., we just hung out for a while.”
While a pub environment may not seem the most conducive to being able to focus and read, Vorisek did not think it was an issue when attending the Sept. 10 meeting.
“It got busy towards the end,” Vorisek said. “Really, it was pretty quiet, nice atmosphere.”
She hoped the attendance at the meetings increases in the future.
“I had a nice little time,” Vorisek said in reference to the Sept. 10 meeting.
A Sept. 24 meeting of the group gathered a crowd of seven people, with five tucked in the corner reading and two at a table having a post-book club dinner. Eight patrons were seated at the bar, mingling and drinking with each other.
The event is also open to those under the drinking age.
“The 1,200 students at Allegheny College are part of the greater-Meadville community,” Fitch said. “We would like them to know we are a resource for them, as well as the 13,000 people that live in Meadville.”
Upcoming dates for the silent book club are Oct. 8 and 22, and Nov. 5 and 19 at Chipper’s from 5-7 p.m. Happy Hour at Chipper’s is from 5-6 p.m.
