Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘davol’

8-Year-Olds March to Demand a Library

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 21, 2014| 4 Comments »

I have blogged before about Sam and Leslie Davol’s library projects, including the Uni, a portable library (here). They were living in Boston’s Chinatown during the economic downturn and got an idea for a temporary library in one of the empty storefronts. Chinatown has not had a branch of the Boston Public Library since the 1950s.

(Read a couple stories about that at the BostonStreetLab, here, and the Boston Globe, here.)

Now it seems some 8-year-olds in Mattapan have become indignant about no-library injustice and have marched on City Hall.

Wesley Lowery writes in the Globe, “The voices were young, but they rang out in a synchronized and forceful chant as the children made their way through the downtown streets. Gloved hands held painted signs as pink and blue bookbags bounced on their backs.

“ ‘Books, access fairness, we’re marching to raise awareness’” the more than 50 second-graders declared as they marched from the Chinatown gate to City Hall Friday afternoon. …

“The youthful protesters were seeking to raise awareness of a campaign to bring a public library to Chinatown, which is the only Boston neighborhood without a library branch. …

“The protest was planned and carried out by students at the Young Achievers School in Mattapan, which as part of its curriculum has recently spent time learning about libraries. Upon hearing that Chinatown does not have a public library, organizers said, the students decided to stage the protest.

“ ‘They asked: “What can we do to help?” ’ said Kim Situ of the Chinese Progressive Association, which helped to organized the march.” Read more here.

And when the Young Achievers from Mattapan have gotten a library for Chinatown, maybe they could work on one for Fort Point. It’s something @FortPointer has been tweeting about for ages.

Maybe he should have been talking to 8-year-olds.

Photo: Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff
Luis Pizarro, 8, was one of the students from the Young Achievers School who marched on City Hall.

Read Full Post »

Library in Shanghai Subway

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 29, 2013| 6 Comments »

Libraries are busting out all over. We’ve blogged about the Little Free Library in Cambridge as well as Sam and Leslie Davol’s uni, which got invited to Kazakhstan — not to mention a library housed in an unused pay phone shelter.

Now it seems that a subway system in China is getting into the act.

Writes Zhang Kun at China Daily, “Shanghai’s Metro Line 2 is turning a new page with a library taking literally an online approach. Passengers will be able to select a book at one station, and return it to any of the other stations with customized bookshelves.

“Readers do not have to pay a deposit or any rent for the books and magazines they take. Instead, they are encouraged to donate 1 yuan (16 US cents) to charity at the bookshelf.

” ‘Now you can read a real book, rather than staring at the cellphone through the metro ride,’ said Zou Shuxian, a spokeswoman for the Aizhi bookstore, which initiated the project jointly with Hujiang.com” and the Metro Line.

“The Chinese Academy of Press and Publication released a survey recently that said the general public between the ages of 18 to 70 read 4.39 books in 2012, much fewer than in Western countries.”

The library “has been a resounding success with office workers. Waiting lines have developed during rush hour. … All the books have green tape on the cover to inform people about the program [and] to remind people it is borrowed and should be returned.”

I myself find it essential to have a book with me whenever I take the subway, but that’s largely because I ride the oldest system in America and it’s always breaking down.

My husband, who lived in Shanghai for about a year, says subways there are fast and efficient. I don’t think book lovers will have time to finish their books before their last stop. A lot of green tapes will be going home with commuters. You can’t keep a book lover down.

Read Full Post »

Up with Cities: “Better Block” and “Uni Project”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The other day on an American Public Media radio broadcast, I heard a story about Better Block Houston and its approach to urban revitalization. “The Better Block is a national movement which originated in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. Better Block projects have improved neighborhoods in Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Portland, and Memphis.”

Concerned residents focus on a vision for one block and throw a daylong event showing the potential.  The idea is that visitors might come to see the event and its special one-day amenities and would then notice cool things about the area and decide to return. New businesses might decide to move in. Sounds like wishful thinking, but the Better Block folks claim the approach is attracting more foot traffic and business.

“The ‘Better Block’ project provides a one-day living workshop of how a ‘Complete Street’ works, by actively engaging the community, helping them to visualize better outcomes for the future, and empowering them to provide feedback in real time. Better Block is a fun and interactive demonstration of a ‘Complete Street’ — and what it can do for a neighborhood. Complete Streets …  are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities must be able to safely move along and across a complete street. Complete Streets make it easy to cross the street, walk to shops, and bicycle to work. They allow buses to run on time and make it safe for people to walk to and from train stations.”

In Boston, a young couple I know, Sam and Leslie Davol, had an idea to set up a temporary library in Chinatown, which had not had a branch library in decades. Their project made use of a storefront that had been vacant during the economic downturn.

Leslie just sent out an e-mail about what they’re working on next: The Uni Project.

“Many of you know the Storefront Library, which Sam and I undertook in a vacant storefront in Boston’s Chinatown last year. That project had a big impact on us, just as it did on the Chinatown community. Since then, we’ve helped several local groups take over the books and Chinatown’s library advocacy, and we’ve spent time exploring a broader need for places like libraries in urban neighborhoods and cities generally. …

“The Uni is a portable infrastructure that will allow us to quickly deploy and create staffed, open-air reading rooms in almost any available urban space. The Uni is based on a system of cubes, and the books inside those cubes are just the start. Like libraries, we plan to use the Uni to provide a compelling venue for readings, talks, workshops, and screenings, through partnerships with local organizations and institutions. And the best part, once we fabricate this lightweight infrastructure, we can keep it running, serve multiple locations, and even replicate it.” Read about The Uni Project here.

8/11/12 update on Uni Project here. Now it’s even in Kazakhstan.

Read Full Post »