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The Albacete City Council, through the Department of Participation and in compliance with a citizen initiative collected through the Open Forum, has presented its project of Free Reading Points, consisting of the placement of small citizen libraries for the free exchange of books, which have been carried out by the municipal carpentry workshop.
The project’s objectives are: to promote neighborhood activity in public spaces, encourage citizen collaboration and civility in respect for public elements, expand the sense of community between neighbors around this way of sharing and encourage reading in public spaces, both for adults and minors.
As Manu Martínez, Councilor for Participation, has pointed out, “these are points self-managed by the citizens themselves in an exercise of civic trust with the behavior of Albacete residents, following the premise that, if the city understands them as their own and useful to their community, it will preserve them. When public space is used for sharing, it transmits symbols that, at the same time, help to differentiate the uses made of the place to create roots with it. When public places are not conducive to meeting women, they become independent of time and, many times, routine ”.
The councilor has indicated that “it is common in other Spanish cities and in other countries, that there are urban elements in public spaces that promote the exchange of books and their reading in parks or squares. Thus, it is common to see in European cities, such as Amsterdam, small open shelves with books for pedestrians, in the United States also with the movement Little Free Library, and in Spain it has already been tried on some occasion such as the Free-Free-Books that fill the shelves of the Plaza de España and corners of the Maria Luisa Park in Seville since 2014, the conversion of old urban cabins into bookshelves of books. free access in Bilbao or London in 2015, the use of urban bus stops as shelves for free loan of books in Armilla (Granada) or the movements of Boockcrossing from Madrid or Valencia ”.
The locations planned for these reading points are, initially, in Albacete’s Plaza del Pelibayo, in the San Pablo neighborhood with the name of Gepetto’s little house, in the park of San Antonio Abad, in the homonymous neighborhood and with the name of Gloria Fuertes, and in the park of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente, in the Medicine neighborhood, under the name of another author, Ana Maria Matute. With them, people are offered the possibility of taking a book to read it in the square or park or to take it home to read it and then return it, donate their own books or stories for other people to read and read the daily press in public spaces.
The presentation ceremony was attended by Raquel Haro, president of the Medicine Neighbors Association; Amparo Villar, secretary of San Antonio Abad, and Esther Carcelén, secretary of San Pablo. Haro has expressed his satisfaction with this initiative “which aims to bring the knowledge of books to the public and we appeal to civic sense”; while Villar has indicated that it is “a very nice, close and tender project, through which parents who are spending time with children will be instilling in them that they have to read.”
The books and stories, as well as the press, will be, initially, provided by the City Council, so that later, with the development of the project, it is the neighbors themselves who donate their books or stories that they no longer use to be shared by others.
/ The Digital of Albacete /
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