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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

City Meet the Only Seattle Library Operating This Week: The People's Library

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 12:21 PM

Occupy Seattle has opened a popup People's Library on the lawn of the Central District's Douglass Truth Library branch on 23rd Avenue and E Yelser Way this week while the Seattle Public Library shutters all neighborhood branches for its depressing annual budget-saving, week-long furlough (which ends after this year thanks to the August passage of the LIBRARY LEVY!!!!).

But for now, this means is you won't be constrained to billboards, buses, and (gasp!) The Stranger as your only outlets for free readin'.

Alex Garland Photography and 99% Media

The popup, shadow library boasts a selection of over 1,000 books, along with four internet workstations with free wi-fi, games and coloring books for kids, and even free food donated by neighbors.

"The People’s Library aims to stay open from 10am-8pm every day until Sept. 4th, at which time Seattle Public Libraries, including Douglas Truth, will re-open for business," states the People's Library mission statement. "The library has no check-out system, no limit on number of books you can take. Only a promise to either return what you have taken when you can, or pass it on to someone else."

Neat.

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This is the sort of thing Boe Odyssey needs to be twirling all around with his scarves.

Posted by gloomy gus on August 29, 2012 at 12:29 PM

There are at last count six Little Free Libraries in use within city limits while Seattle Public Library is on furlough.

Posted by Keister Button on August 29, 2012 at 12:35 PM

Hardware libraries are so passe; basically a museum for dusty antiques. CLose ALL the libraries and spend the dough on free internet consoles on every street corner; wifi and i-pads for every poor kid and hobo. After another 20 yrs of progressing internet tech we should be able to effectively close public schools as well. Dont get me wrong; seattles libraries are some of the best examples of public architecture in the city but they should be reserved for mandatory mushroom/lsd treatment.

Posted by porchedge on August 29, 2012 at 12:50 PM

gloomy gus @1: Totally! Seattle needs a Bo Odyssey bat-signal for situations like these. . . .

Posted by Anne X on August 29, 2012 at 2:55 PM

@3 that is nonsense. The biggest problem with public libraries today is that they don't inform people effectively enough on what it is they actually provide. What a librarian actually is and can do and all the things beyond storing books a library contains. It is in almost all countries a social center, it houses and promotes lokal culture and events. It has educated information searchers - who can without bias (unlike google) go through archives (physical or digital), transcripts, logs and books spanning a large section of the worlds collected libraries.

I wish we could create search engines that worked aswell - but so far, no luck. I wish they could make social communities that did as much for local communities as a library but as of yet its just pictures of food and peoples birthdays.

The library as an institution is as relevant as a hospital and the idea, the notion that it should supply information and a contact point to the community it serves, free of charge, is essential to its function.

(I should in all honesty point out that I'm married to a librarian and he would kill me if I didn't say these things :) )

Posted by JensR

on August 29, 2012 at 3:00 PM

Wow, Occupy-ers doing something useful & beneficial to society. It must be hard for them to have to work for 10 whole hours straight. Good thing it's only for a week so they can get back to bongo drumming.

Posted by Confluence on August 29, 2012 at 5:47 PM

Do they have the Shades of Gray series? It's hopelessly reserved at my SPL branch.

Posted by Free Lunch on August 29, 2012 at 6:20 PM

@6...you know...some occupy-ers have jobs. some of us even work more than the basic forty. open your eyes to the world around you and stop focusing on the people who've already done so and find error in the system.

Posted by anon.wa.someone on August 30, 2012 at 8:11 AM