The first
mini-library was installed on a phone booth eight blocks further north in a rather desolate area that has little foot traffic.
The libraries are part of Locke’s urban intervention project call the
Department of Urban Betterment (thus, DUB). The first
mini-library was installed on a phone booth eight blocks further north in a rather desolate area that has little foot traffic. The books disappeared within six hours and the plywood shelf within just ten days. In order to counter this, Locke chose a much more conspicuous location near an express train stop on Broadway and put a visible logo on the bottom of each book’s spine. The shelf itself is completely detachable.
The new library hasn’t been vandalized, but Locke believes that the logo makes passersby reluctant to leave with the book and return with another one, which is the idea – to create an egalitarian
book-sharing system for the city. He writes on Graceful Spoon, “I intentionally wanted to avoid any directions…but after seeing people hesitate when confronted with 002, perhaps there is a more subtle way to gently describe an intended use.
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(Thanx Walter!)
