A total of 620 books were used to build the book Christmas tree at the entrance of the John Mackintosh Hall.

Danielle Duarte will win a copy of Christian Hook’s La Busqueda after guessing there were 580 books used in the Christmas tree competition.

Gibraltar Cultural Services staff started dismantling the book Christmas tree today while counting the books and arranging them in piles of 10 books each.

A short 20 minutes later, the total was announced by John Mackintosh Hall director Angela Bula, and the winner was selected from a total of 19 entries.

The idea for the book Christmas tree came from GCS CEO Yvette Zarb-Bensusan who had seen it on YouTube.

Librarian Kimberley Pecino said it was a lot of fun making the Christmas Tree, because books are usually arranged by genre and author and this time they were arranged by size and thickness, which she said was harder than people thought.

It took three or four hours to assemble, but the idea for a book competition came as an after-thought.

Mrs Pecino said: “We wanted to do something special this year and the book Christmas Tree has been very well received by visitors.

“I’ve heard there are lots of photos out there and maybe next year we can start a hashtag so we can see the photos ourselves.

“Now the books will be taken back to the library where they belong.”

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