microlibraries

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Donkey Libraries

Arguably the most famous donkey library is the Biblioburro. Elementary school teacher Luis Soriano and his two donkeys, Alfa and Beto, travel around Northern Colombia with the intention of promoting and spreading literacy amongst the impoverished and war-torn communities. Soriano was inspired by the power that reading and literature had in healing students who have experienced trauma due to the violence of the region. He started his biblioburro in the late 1990s with 70 books, and continues today–although his collection has grown to over 4800 volumes.

PBS recently did a documentary on Luis Soriano and his Biblioburro and has extensive information on their website. The New York Times also has an article about the Biblioburro.

Venezula has their own version of the biblioburro, called bibliomulas (book mules). BBC has an article on the bibliomulas, and there is also a blog about the bibliomulas (in Spanish).

Ethiopia Reads also has a donkey library, known as the Donkey Mobile Libraries. Information about the Donkey Mobile Libraries can be found on the Ethiopia Reads website, this BBC article, and in the video below:

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Children's Book Boats in Laos

Community Learning International and Luang Prubang Library in Laos have two book boats that hold 1000 children's books that visit over 100 villages along the Mekong river in Laos. The boats go on trips ranging from two weeks to up to a month, stopping in villages and staying overnight so that the children have a chance to read and learn. The staff members also plan learning activities for the children to engage in while they're making their stops and they also leave "book bags" at the schools (usually containing 100 books) so that the students can read different titles during the interim. 

Above is a video from Community Learning International about the Laotian Book Boats.

More information can be found on the Community Learning International page and the US Embassy page.

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French designer Matali Crasset designed a pop-up library that was installed on a beach in the Southern French town of Istres.

Created from the realization that people enjoy reading at the beach but do not always bring reading material (or reading material that contains more depth than an issue of Vogue), Crasset worked with the local library to curate a collection with range with the intention of "bring[ing] books to the population to encourage the practice of not only reading, but of lending.”

Additional information: designboom

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Librarian Margaret Day and street-art enthusiast Adam Wiesehan and Margaret Day are two New Yorkers who created their own pop-up library. In this article, Day and Wiesehan give tips on how to create your own pop-up library within your community.

Images of their pop-up library (and other projects) are available at their website, rekstur.org.

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An IFLA press release from 2002 documenting the Donkey Drawn Libraries in Zimbabwe, which not only function as libraries for books, video, and music, but also have internet, e-mail, telephone, radio, and fax services.

These services are very popular in the areas that they are able to reach and it is reported that the estimated literary rate in these areas are 86%, partially due to the libraries. The carts are also powered by solar energy via solar panels installed on the roofs of the carts.

More resources on the Donkey Drawn Libraries are available as follows: "Donkeys Take ICT to Zim," Rural Libraries Zimbabwe, "Zimbabwe’s Braying Cavalry in Campaign for Literacy"

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Library Vending Machines

Vending machines that operate as libraries have been popping up across the United States in the past few years. In Norman, Oklahoma, the Pioneer Library System has two library vending machines – operating very similarly to the popular Redbox movie vending machines – which opened up in areas in which library branches were not easy to access. Patrons use their library cards to check out books and the machines can also be used to return books, pay fines, and pick up books on hold. The capacity of the machines are quite large – they can hold up to 400 books and DVDs and the return bins can hold 1000 items. Below is a video demonstration:

Additional information on Norman, OK vending machine libraries on Bookriot and Melville House.

Other vending machine libraries have also been implemented in the communities in Santa Clara County and Fullerton, California as well as Northland, Pennsylvania.

Similar vending machine libraries are also being implemented in China, especially in areas where libraries are not easily accessible as well as public spaces such as supermarkets and subways. More information can be found on ChinaView. 

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Similar to the Little Free Library (LFL), Urbana, Illinois residents Mike and Maiko Lehman have installed a tiny roadside library (they are calling it a People's Public Library) in their neighborhood in which they encourage people to borrow, return, and donate books. The difference between LFLs and the People's Public Library is that the intention behind the Lehmans' project goes beyond neighbors lending books; it also includes a community bulletin board and space for the community to leave pamphlets about programs and upcoming events, has a bench for people to sit and read, hooks for latching dog leashes and bags, and solar panels to light the library at night. The library has books for a variety of ages that span several genres. More information about the People's Public Library can be found on the News-Gazette website and information about the actual library, called a nüz/böx, can be found on the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center site. (thanks for the suggestion, Lucas!)

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Many communities in Norway are best reached by boat, which is why three county libraries on the west coast of the country (Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane, and Møre og Romsdal) have pooled their resources together to support the Norwegian Book Boat Library (known as "Epos"), which started in 1959. The boat can hold up to 6000 titles, half of which are children's books. There is also space on the boats for patrons to read and relax, as well as enjoy live entertainment from time to time. The boat only operates during the winter months; during the summer it is used as a tourist boat.

More information on Epos and the history of Norwegian book boat libraries can be found in this IFLA presentation as well as on their Wikipedia page.

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Instructions and resources for creating your own Little Free Library from the LFL website

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Little Free Library (LFL) was a concept started in 2009 by Todd Bol, who built a small structure in the shape of a schoolhouse (in commemoration of his mother, a schoolteacher) that housed books on his front yard with the intention of the community borrowing them. The principle behind LFL, "take a book, leave a book," was an idea that caught on not only in Bol's community, but one that has spread worldwide. Owners of LFLs can be found in over 40 countries, in over 6000 locations. Individuals can build their own libraries or order one from the LFL website and can register their libraries on the website as well (for a fee).

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The Uni Project is a series of pop-up reading rooms that are located throughout New York City. The reading rooms, called Unis, are comprised of 144 open-faced cubes that are easily assembled and can be installed in any public, outdoor space. The Uni's book collection, which is non-circulatory, is comprised of books that were donated to the Project and it is curated by a team of librarians to make sure that materials that are engaging for both children and adults are included. The Unis are not only libraries but can also be utilized as public gathering spaces for communities to come and learn together.

Although most Unis are concentrated in New York City, a second Uni Project was implemented in Kazakhstan in 2012.

To learn more about the Uni, check out their Kickstarter page (from 2011)

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Bicicloteca is a small bicycle library in São Paulo, Brazil, run by 61-year-old Robson Mendonça. The Bicicloteca is unique in that one of the main purposes of the library is to provide a service for homeless people who do not have library cards (as having proof of a residential address is a prerequisite for acquiring a card). Mendonça himself was homeless at one point and after reading and being inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm, was able to leave the streets. The Bicicloteca is also a free wi-fi hot spot, serves as a community meeting point, has books in braille, and also provides tours of the city. 

An informational video about Bicicloteca can be viewed below (video in Portuguese):

More information about Bicicloteca can be found on their blog (also in Portuguese).

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In Plovdiv, Bulgaria, an old trolley bus has been converted into a stationary library. The library was named after Otets Paisiy, a famous Bulgarian author. The trolley line no longer in use, but the bus is part of an initiative to breath new life into a previously-functionless urban area that was lacking a cultural center. 

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Artist John Locke has found a clever way to utilize underused and underutilized phone booths in New York City: by turning them into mini-libraries. Locke's blog post notes that the libraries are not permanent; books will disappear after a certain time and the booths themselves also get torn down. But they are an interesting solution to the seemingly obsolete phone booths found throughout the city and Locke's intention is to spread literacy and community in ways that otherwise might not happen.

More information can be found in this New York Times article and on Spontaneous Intervention, 

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BiebBus is a book bus that operates in the Zaan region of the Netherlands, a somewhat-populous area comprised of smaller villages that can't quite finance an actual library. The BiebBus was designed so that it takes up less space on the ground by having two "layers." The library is more of a semi-truck and trailer rather than a bus, and is comprised of two layer. The bottom layer is a more permanent layer that contains the library's 7000 book collection, and the top layer is able to slide above the bottom layer and serves as a reading spot. The bus is in collaboration with roughly 20 schools in the area, and will stop at a school for an entire day for the children to use.

A video about the BiebBus is available here (in Dutch).

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Villagers in Somerset, England found a clever solution to two problems: losing their community book mobile and the threat of losing a defunct telephone booth. They decided to transform the iconic red booth into a miniature library. Somerset's nearest library is four miles away so this miniature library is a quick fix for community members who are looking for a book to read without having to leave the village. The cost of acquiring the box was £1 and the total cost to get the library running was a small amount of £30. The library operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Another article about the phone box library can be found on the Guardian's website. British Telecom also has instructions on how to repurpose a telephone booth

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Argentinian artist Raul Lemesoff has converted a 1979 Ford Falcon–a popular military vehicle during the dictatorship of Argentina during that time– into a mobile "tank" that functions as a mobile library. Called the Arma De Instruccion Masiva (Weapon of Mass Instruction), Lemesoff's library can hold up to 900 books and is mainly comprised of donations. The vehicle drives around Buenos Aires and Lemesoff's goal is to educate his community through the sharing of books.

Below is a video about Lemesoff's project from AFP:

More information can be found on the Arma De Instruccion Masiva website (in Spanish).