More on the sudden sprouting up of alternative libraries from the blog Beyond the Margins by guest blogger Necee Regis:
As a kid, I loved to read. Still do. The problem for my eight-year old self was that the public library was so far away. Located at the opposite end of town, about three miles door-to-door, it wasn’t easy for me to get there with my mom, a single parent who never learned how to drive.
Lucky for me, the library sponsored a Bookmobile, a rolling library located—if my memory is correct—in a cross between an Airstream trailer and a bus. It arrived once a week, parking in the supermarket lot behind our apartment building, and I still remember the thrill of climbing on board and choosing my reading materials for the week. No matter that my choices were limited to the meager capacity of its shelves. The Bookmobile expanded my world.
New and inventive ways to share books, promote literacy, and create community are appearing all over the place: in public phone booths, in front of private homes, in underused urban lots, city parks, and farmers’ markets. Here’s a tour of some pretty spectacular ways to find and share books. Keep your eyes open: an alternative library might be coming to a corner near you.
Permission
Wonder if the person that book the books in the phone booth had permission. If not wonder if they would be okay if I went to their house and built something in their yard without asking?
Easier to ask for forgiveness…
as they say
Cell phones
Even a conservative librarian like me sees the romantic concept of having books in underused urban lots, city parks, and farmers’ markets.
But the way to spread literature to kids and teens and not just to aging romantics that dream of farmers markets you need to get books onto iPhones and Android phones.
A QR code that you could scan and get a free book is a better way to spread books to kids and teens.