Book Board Chat

Public Bookshelves in Germany

Take a book, leave a book. In the birthplace of the printing press, public bookshelves are popping up on street corners, city squares and suburban supermarkets. In these free-for-all libraries, people can grab whatever they want to read, and leave behind anything they want for others. There's no need to register, no due date, and you can take or give as many as you want.

This project is open for everybody. The city of Cologne’s latest public bookcase, steel with acrylic glass doors, was put up two weeks ago next to one of the city's medieval towers. It is the fourth free shelf that the Cologne Citizen's Foundation, has placed outside; there are two more inside local Ikea outlets.

The public book shelves, which are usually financed by donations and cared for by local volunteers, have popped up independently of each other in many cities across Germany. Each shelf holds around 200 books and it takes about six weeks for a complete turnover, with all the old titles replaced by new ones, he said.

One 46-year-old Cologne resident who works in catering and event management, said she takes advantage of the free books all the time. "I have often left books here, but frankly, I have even more often taken books with me," she said, browsing through the latest new arrivals. "For me personally, this project is simply great, because I do not have much money left to spend on good literature."

Even commercial book stores and online book retailers seem to support the idea of free book exchanges. "We see this project rather as a sales promotion than as competition," said Elmar Muether, manager of one book store. "If books are present everywhere, it helps our business too," said a spokeswoman for buch.de, a German online bookstore comparable to Amazon. "Public bookshelves are in no competition with the online book trade. On the contrary, we are happy about any kind of motivation to read," she said.

So far, the Cologne book group has had few problems with vandalism or other kinds of abuse, though a used-book seller once scooped up every volume on a shelf to sell at a flea market. Another time the shelves kept getting stacked with material from a religious group. But propaganda is the only kind of literature not allowed on the shelves, whether it is right-wing, racist or proselytizing.

The book cases are like small treasure chests with an eclectic mix of anything from fiction to obscure self-help, travel guides or crime novels. Some spaces reserved the lower shelves for children's literature only. It is important that it is make easy for everyone to overcome their inhibitions and participate in this 'reading culture on the street'. While most of the shelves have so far been put up in upscale neighborhoods, volunteers who help look after the project are planning to put up future shelves in poor neighborhoods, where residents often don't have as much access to literature.

Nobody really knows where the idea for the public shelves originally stems from. What's certain is it's a popular grass-roots movement that's catching on -- even abroad. Just a few weeks ago the group was asked for help with opening public book shelves in poor rural areas of Mozambique.

A wonderful idea
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2011/10/14/public_bookshelves_spread_across_germany/