Daily Times

LAHORE: The largest and oldest online book store of Pakistan has gone offline with the message on the website saying the domain registration lapsed and is pending renewal.

The exact reason behind this lack of renewal of a 20 years old domain name is unclear. Daily Times wrote to Liberty Books for comment and hasn’t received a response till filing of this story.

The domain name libertybooks – which is a premium domain name by any standards – was registered on August 12, 1997. Their online store has also been the oldest with the oldest version of the website dating back to 1998. This tells how technologically advance this 56 years old bookstore has been, making it even more difficult to understand this lapse.

LibertyBooks.com is extremely popular among bibliophiles who don’t only get their favourite books delivered at their doorsteps but also actively participate in community engagements such as pre-ordering their favourites, waiting for next editions and even online book-clubbing.

The news about shutting down of another oldest bookstore Ferozsons earlier this year didn’t set well with the book reading community. The news about Liberty Books’ online store going offline might also disappoint many.

However, there’s still hope. From Liberty Books’ social media presence, it appears that they are actively promoting their offers and deals. This hints the lapse must be an oversight and the online bookstore is very much alive and will be back soon.

Update: The domain name has been renewed and the online store is coming back to life. Some users may still face difficulties accessing it due to cache and domain name servers’ global resolution but we can now confirm the online store will be back up fully in a few hours.