My Bookshelf

Thursday 16 August 2012

Phone Box Libraries

Book swapping, be it ad hoc charity projects or long term library schemes, occurs all over the place. Sites like ReadItSwapIt, top blog London Book Swap, Booklending.com, BookMooch.com - the list goes on - have done wonderful things in encouraging us all to get everyone reading regardless of whether they can part with their cash for the latest hardback.

What has just appeared on my radar, and I appreciate I'm a bit slow off the mark, is a whole new project that I just love. Iconic red phone boxes are being appropriated by book geeks in villages across Britain as book swapping sites.

One phone box, which was originally provided in celebration of King George V's silver jubilee, faced removal after years of disuse but the villagers weren't having it. So they bought the box and turned it into one of the smallest libraries you will ever see.

It is thought British social media whiz, James Econs, was the first to instigate this idea, coining the term and book swap project, 'PhoneBoox' near his home in Horsley, Surrey.

It's not just the Brits at it though. Architect John Locke has been giving New York City's phone booths a literary makeover, building shelves inside them and filling them with books that can be borrowed and exchanged by anyone who happens to walk by.

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