Sampath Bank has launched a crowdsourced tool to help visitors locate books across the Colombo International Book Fair’s 150-plus stalls, which the bank describes as Sri Lanka’s first community-powered book discovery platform.
Sampath Book Finder was introduced on the fair’s opening day, 25 September, the Daily Mirror and EconomyNext reported. The 27th Colombo International Book Fair runs at the BMICH until 4 October.
How it works
When a book proves hard to find, visitors can go to bookfairtracker.com or scan a QR code at the venue and put a request to the community. Readers who have already spotted the title can then share its location, sparing others a stall-by-stall search.
The platform works in the other direction too: visitors can recommend books they come across by submitting the title, publisher, hall and stall number, which lets other readers both discover and locate them.
Chief Marketing Officer Milinda Weerasinghe said the bank had tried to turn “the collective knowledge of readers into a real-time digital solution,” addressing a familiar problem at an event whose sheer scale can make finding a single title time-consuming.
Banking at the fair
Sampath Bank is the official banking partner of this year’s fair, continuing an association it says has run for more than 20 years.
The bank is also offering 25% cashback for Sampath GPay customers on purchases at the fair and three-month interest-free instalment plans for book purchases on Sampath credit cards. Customers opening selected fixed deposits at the venue receive an additional 0.25%. Banking services are available at the bank’s physical presence on site.
