PORT ANGELES — Peninsula College students, faculty and staff and Port Angeles High School staff members will give away free books Wednesday.

The giveaways are to celebrate World Book Night.

Peninsula College’s celebration will be in the Pirate Union Building.

People are invited to stop by between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. to pick up free books.

The college also has scheduled a special program featuring local storyteller Dennis Duncan in the Pirate Union Building from 12:35 p.m. to 1:25 p.m.

For more information, phone Helen Lovejoy at 360-417-6362 or email her at hlovejoy@pencol.edu.

The Port Angeles High School library will go to hospitals, mass transit centers, nursing homes, food pantries and schools to hand out free books.

“Volunteer book lovers like me and the awesome library staff at Port Angeles High School will help promote reading by going into our communities and handing out free copies of a book we love, often to those without means or access to a printed book,” Susan MacDonald, instructor and librarian, said.

Staff members also plan to give away books at Port Angeles High School and Lincoln High School.

World Book Night is an international event designed to spread the love of reading from person to person.

More than 25,000 volunteers from Kodiak, Alaska to Key West, Fla., will give away half a million free books in more than 6,000 towns and cities across America.

The holiday was first celebrated in the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2011.

Since then, it has become an annual celebration timed to be on the same day as Shakespeare’s birthday.

The books distributed in the United States, usually between 30 to 35 different titles, are chosen by an independent panel of librarians and booksellers.

The authors of the books waive their royalties, and publishers agree to pay the costs of producing specially printed World Book Night U.S. editions.