IPOH: Move over, Luxembourg. The Guinness World Record for Largest Book Pyramid now belongs to Malaysia.
Perak State Library Corporation and Imagika Sdn Bhd shared the honour for the feat by building a pyramid with 70,247 books.
Library director Nor Aini Mohd Nordin said they started planning for it in August.
“We sent out flyers and pamphlets looking for people to donate books. We got about 20,000 books given by the public and publishers. Most of the books come from our library collection. We have a lot of books,” she said, adding that the “construction” of the pyramid began last month.“Everyone was tired because it was a tedious task, with all the labelling of books and stacking them up,” she said, adding that about 40 volunteers and librarians were involved.
Their round-the-clock effort throughout seven days had now come to fruition.
Nor Aini said the books used in the pyramid would be distributed to orphanages, old folks’ homes and other institutions.
She said the book pyramid also symbolised Perak’s emphasis on knowledge.
“It is the Mentri Besar’s vision to make Perak a knowledge-based state,” she added.
Guinness World Records adjudicator Anna Orford said the structure must be created without adhesives and must be free stacking.
“If the pyramid collapsed, the record will not be given to them,” Orford said.
The record for the largest book pyramid had been broken four times. The feat by the state library and Imagika is the fifth.
“It first started in India with 10,000 books. The number of books used in later attempts have doubled since,” she said.
