Posts filed under ‘unusual libraries’
subway libraries
I recently learned of several projects involving reading on subways.
In the United States in 2016, a Miami-based ad company created an “underground library” on New York City subways, providing excerpts from ebooks and encouraging the use of the New York Public Library. Here’s a brief video about the project. Swipe for a free read!
Perhaps the company was inspired by something similar in 2013 in Romania : accessible ebooks on the walls of the Piata Victoriei subway station in Bucharest.
Also in 2013, a London “creative” organized a project she calls Books on the Underground, leaving books (regular books, not ebooks) all over the stations and trains. She documents the project here.
library bars
Click the image to read about eight library bars, or bar libraries, in the U.S. and England. I wonder if anyone ever reads any of the books. Probably not in the bar pictured here, since it doesn’t look like the books are removable. Thanks, Kathleen Kirk!
Addendum, February 19: more library bars in London here. Thanks, Diane Westerfield!
“weapon of mass instruction”
In honor of World Book Day 2015 (March 5), Argentinian artist Raul Lemesoff created an “Arma de Instruccion Masiva” (weapon of mass instruction), a tank-like vehicle full of free books. He drove it around the city of Buenos Aires, giving books to anyone who promised to read them. Thanks, Geordie Lishman!
Improbable Libraries and the Itinerant Librarian
Two shenanigans in one BBC radio program. An interview with Alex Johnson, author of Improbable Libraries, and Sara Wingate Gray, the Itinerant Poetry Librarian.
lost ancient art of librarian miniaturization
BoingBoing’s no-text post with this image, posted November 12, 2013, is titled “Fragmentary evidence of the lost ancient art of librarian miniaturization,” which counts as a shenanigan, I think.
The image is all over the internet, sometimes with a citation to the Archives of Prague Castle. [UPDATE, November 14: I’ve just received an email from Martin Halata, head archivist at Prague Castle, who tells me the photograph is not from their archives.] It’s even got lolz versions in Czech [I found these a few days ago but now I can’t find them anymore and it’s driving me crazy].
I used Google’s nifty image search mechanism to discover that — as far as I can tell — this image first appeared on the internet on April 22, 2013, at Lost and Found in Prague. The photographer is M. Peterka and the date is unknown. [Some versions of the image appear with a date of ca. 1940; some say the person in the picture is a man; others say it is a woman.]
MAJOR UPDATE, January 2023: Piotr Kowalczyk of “Reader Updated” has found the original source of this image. It appeared on page 35 Fotorok, volume 58, Issue 1, 1959, with the caption (in Czech): “Archivy chystají velkou jarní výstavu československé státní myšlenky na Pražském hradě,” translated by Kowalczyk as “The archives are preparing a large spring exhibition of the Czechoslovak state idea at Prague Castle.” The photographer was Miroslav Peterka, and the location was the Clementinum in Prague.
a floating zine library?
Is it “an experimental public art project” or a floating library of artists’ books and zines? Both, apparently, and maybe more. Planned for August 2013 at Cedar Lake in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of today it appears that the design and contents of the library are still up in the air, with this warning:
PLEASE NOTE that by submitting your materials for access on the Floating Library you acknowledge that any of these things may happen to your printed matter:
-extensive water damage
-stepped on at the bottom of a canoe
-sand between the pages
-borrowed and never returned
-returned but tattered after being enjoyed by many people.
Thanks, Emily Lloyd!
Stereotank’s Little Free Library
Cool waterproof futuristic mini-library in Nolita in NYC from Stereotank. Part of the Little Free Library project. We’ve seen other examples here at Library Shenanigans, but this one is my new favorite. Thanks, BoingBoing!
libraries collecting/lending shenaniganish things
The Macaulay Library of the Ornithology Lab at Cornell University has digitized over 7000 hours of wildlife sounds, including the clarinet-like call of the indri lemur, which they describe as “the best candidate to appear on a John Coltrane record.” You can hear that sound and more in the NPR story, here. (You don’t have to listen to the whole story — the website has pulled out a few animal sounds for easy clicking.)
Speaking of unusual library collections, the Basalt Regional Library District in Colorado is lending seed packets. Patrons grow fruits and vegetables from the seeds they check out, and then harvest seeds from them and return those to the library.
Thanks, Rebecca Laroche!
Hernando Guanlao’s private public library
Hernando Guanlao has been running his own version of a public library for twelve years in Manila. The library has grown from about a hundred books to a few thousand. From the article: “The idea is simple. Readers can take as many books as they want, for as long as they want – even permanently. As Guanlao says: ‘The only rule is that there are no rules.'”
Thanks, Dina Wood!
mini-libraries in telephone booths all over the world
We knew about some of the mini-libraries in NYC and elsewhere in the U.S., and we knew that red telephone booths in the U.K. were sprouting libraries as early as 2009, but it seems the phenomenon is growing. The Netherlands has a portable children’s library in a shipping container, and Bulgaria has a library on a trolley. Thanks, Sarah Milteer!
Library Shenanigans 