design, Ottawa

Promoting Literacy one block at a time

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The City may be planning a multi-million dollar library building, but west side residents are taking literacy to the streets.

The up-cycled advertising flyer box shown above is in front of Vito’s, oops,  Preston Grocery oops, Kit Kat store at the corner of Elm and Preston. Local residents are invited to deposit their surplus books into the box for others to enjoy. When I looked inside I found some femlit, a cooking book, some light reading, and a DVD by David Chernushenko.

There is another one at the corner of Christie and Cambridge Streets:

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You can see what is inside:

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Despite the Library label, I presume it too is a swap box, although it makes sense to carry on the good karma by bringing the read books back and adding a few more.

I’m the lucky recipient of several households of book buyers that pass their books on my way. I pass them on by dropping them into the library return slot with my borrowed books (I am cheap), so the OPL can resell them. Every dollar counts.

But now I can recycle books while keeping things uber-local.

Excuse me, I have a hardcover Da Vinci Code book that needs to go for walk.

In the meantime, here are a few more book boxes I have seen whilst travelling:

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What have you done for local literacy lately?

 

 

3 thoughts on “Promoting Literacy one block at a time”

  1. What a great civic move. I take my hat off the super cool family that put the book box outside of the KitKat. I would love to hear more history of the store. I can’t imagine it was another topless shoeshine joint, but I am sure it has an interesting history.

  2. Hi Eric

    My wife and I installed the library book box at Christie and Cambridge. We got the idea while visiting a friend in Montreal. It is about literacy and about community and about occupying your time with a book that would otherwise sit on somebody’s shelf.

    But what I’ve also found is that it’s provided a lot of good feelings and smiles. So many people are taken by the concept. There’s a positive energy to the whole thing that touches many people. People are studying the concept, taking pictures, taking books, and leaving books.

    My favourite moment was when a fellow named Ivan pulled up in his car and got out. He had doubled back to have a closer look. We got to talking and he said seeing this gave him faith in mankind. Hi praise indeed but I’m happy to hear it.

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