LISNews: Librarian News

If good ideas transcend boundaries, this one does it by bicycle. That is, by Bicicloteca [ http://biciclotecas.wordpress.com/ ], a bicycle that carries a small library through the city of São Paulo, Brazil.

The project is a creative and dynamic way to encourage reading, especially among people who live on the streets, because libraries typically require identification and proof of residence to loan books; documents which homeless people don't have.

Kahle took the library of libraries — the internet — and made a couple of copies of it, and keeps making copies. One he keeps in servers in San Francisco, the other in mirror servers in Alexandria, where the world’s most famous library burned 2,000 years ago. (His data survived the Egyptian revolution unscathed.)

Books were still available for checkout Tuesday but from the sidewalk outside the vacant city building that briefly had been occupied as a "people's library" before police shut it down.

Ten to 15 people left the property at 1449 Miller Ave., near International Boulevard, shortly after officers entered the building at about 11 p.m. Monday and told the activists they were trespassing, said Officer Johnna Watson, a police department spokeswoman.

The Cleveland Public Library has installed a portable reading room in a trendy downtown district in the hopes that locals who flock to the area to dine and shop will also check out the library’s new open-air book kiosk.

Dubbed the BookBox, the custom-designed galvanized metal and reclaimed wood structure, which opened July 21, houses about 200 books, offers free wireless, and makes laptops available for Internet browsing. The compact mobile unit resides in a newly renovated park in Cleveland’s lively Market Square District, which is also home to a growing population of artists, local food producers, trendy restaurants, and shops.

The idea is to entice city dwellers and suburbanites, who frequent the area’s boutiques and dining spots, to also stop by the CPL’s warm weather book kiosk. “It’s a great opportunity to tout our services,” CPL public services director John Skrtic told LJ.

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