By: JadetheCreator
Upon clicking the Facebook webpage to The People’s Mobile Library, you’ll notice a huge, inviting banner with the word F(READ)OM.
The word alone speaks volumes in many instances. We look to books to retrace our steps in recorded history, we cozy up to books to imagine places we aren’t able to see. There is an importance that much of the population find in books, that simply cannot be fulfilled by anything other outlet. There’s the internet, but there’s nothing more satisfying than being able to find that sense of accomplishment in your research. Tracing your finger along the printed paper, configuring textual styles, and taking it further, the smell of timeless, aging wisdom, marked by years of wear. A bookworm will take a books text to exactly what a book is meant for.
An excerpt of the webpage’s description goes as followed:
“Long before there was Amazon bringing books to your doorsteps, there were book mobiles traveling; often used to provide books to villages and city suburbs that had no library buildings. The book mobile went from a simple horse drawn cart in the 19th century to large customized vehicles that became a part of their culture and reached their height of popularity in the mid 20th century.”
Before we think about how much we appreciate that initiative coming back, or that there are actually people willing to bring this to you on a bike, we should think about the time we live in.
We should think about how books involving Mexican American studies have been banned in Arizona, and have actually required the likes of “Book Smuggling Radicals” called Librotraficante to bring them into refuge of underground libraries. Librotraficante translates to “Book Trafficker”. One has to really ponder on this question. Since when did we ever have to use such an invasive term to protect a certain aspect of documented literature and history? Book Trafficker?
The coined term itself becomes just as important, as similar situations coinciinfo
For example, this past July, a 9 year old boy’s “Little Free Library”, with a slogan that reads “Take a book, leave a book” was shut down by city officials because of neighborly complaints that a small, colorful bookshelf containing books was both distracting and considered a “hazard”. If a building of such nature is not connected to your home in Kansas, it will be taken down. May as well throw away all of your tacky lawn ornaments and figure out a way to attach that storage shed somewhere to your rain drains.
What is important about these two cases in particular, are the information involved and the fact that what is written cannot be controlled, unlike most editable articles online and slim pickings in county libraries.
The type of books that The People’s Mobile Library look to stock pile will largely focus on all but your ordinary library collection, ranging from Do It Yourself resources, psychology, outstanding philosophy, self challenge books, and anything of radical content. Especially, a few copies of the banned books of Arizona, in which Librotraficante, and one of the many banned authors, Dagoberto Gilb, have been gracious enough to offer The People’s Mobile Library with a few copies of their texts; but only a few.
This means that when the building process of these mobile libraries has been completed, on either bike, you will find a diamond in history. These mobile libraries will be toted by hard workers in our very own community, from different organizations and all walks of life, who together, believe that sharing such important literature should always be accessible to any one in public, and the idea that knowledge should never be banned or hindered.
So, take a book, leave a book of similar, thought provoking content. Or, take a book, leave a donation for bike upgrades/maintenance and book purchases. You’ll most likely catch your friendly peddlers in just about any area, or your local art and music shows.
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If you are interested in helping with the construction of these libraries or providing book donations prior to its first course around the city, please send a message to The People’s Mobile Library via Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Peoples-Mobile-Library/480225015446671?sk=info
