On my way to school the other day, I heard an interesting story on CBC Radio about Circulating Libraries (the topic for my class presentation that was back in October) and the announcer was talking about a new kind of library starting up in England. Upon hearing the story, I just had to Goggle it and find out more. I would just put the link on my page here, but I am lucky that what I write is displaying, so to save myself a headache I will just tell the good stuff and what I found cool.
New technology like computers, televisions, and cell phones are starting to make the old inventions that we depended on obsolete. Almost everyone and their mum have cell phones these days resulting in the phone booths of England slowly shutting down. In Somerset England, a small town who brag about their population of 800 souls have taken the famous red phone boxes which are scattered uselessly everywhere, and have made something new. The town bought the red phone box for 1£ (that is about $2ish in our money!!!) from British Telecom who are the people pulling the plugs on the boxes “by the hundreds” all over England.
One of the world’s smallest Lending libraries of about 100 books, the town in Somerset created a free library of dropped of books that can be taken and borrowed by your own leisure. It is a big success with the people of the town and it shows how a community can work together to recycle something that was once a loved and active machine, into a happily employed box with purpose again. It is quite a remarkable story that I wanted to share. BBC has some pages about this if anyone is interested.
Oh yea, :) I almost forgot that I came across other things that they are turning the old phone boxes into like: art instillations, showers, public toilets, and even fish tanks!
