BibloRed (Capital Network of Public Libraries) of Bogotá, Colombia

I first heard about the BibloRed (Capital Network of Public Libraries) of Bogotá, Colombia after it won the 2002 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Award. You can read more about it in this short report. It sounded a really exciting way of bringing a lot of change to a library service quickly, and there sounded to be many lives changed as a result. I am still very interested in visiting this library. I will have to work on my Spanish so it is not as basic as it currently is.



This month for #blogjune I have been sharing some of the libraries on my wish list to visit. Over the next few months I will be writing about libraries I visited as part of my holidays. They were only part of my holidays. I saw and did a lot of things which did not involve libraries as well.

It will take me a while to bring all the ideas and information together about this. You can have a look at the images I have been loading to Flickr. It will take me a while to upload all the library photographs, and so far the descriptive information is minimal. I will be writing about these libraries, and adding to their descriptions on Flickr over the next few months.

Room to read

11 Room to read is investing in reading rooms in developing countries. These are school libraries to help enable children with their reading. Room to read is a very practical way that people can help complete the United Nations Millennium Development goals. Its program is around schools, libraries, publishing in local languages, and scholarships. The statistics below have been taken from their website.

Schools 1,442
Libraries 11,246
Books Published 553
Books Distributed 9.4 million
Girls' Scholarships 10,590
Children Benefited 5.1 million



For more information, and to see how you can help visit their website.

Unseen Library

In the discworld books which Terry Pratchett writes there is an Unseen University, and that university has a library

People were stupid, sometimes. They thought the Library was a dangerous place because of all the magical books, which was true enough, but what made it really one of the most dangerous places there could ever be was the simple fact that it was a library.
Guards, Guards, p.166

The study of invisible writings was a new discipline made available by the discovery of the bi-directional nature of Library-Space. The thaumic mathematics are complex, but boil down to the fact that all books, everywhere, affect all other books. This is obvious: books inspire other books written in the future, and cite books written in the past. But the General Theory of L-Space suggests that, in that case, the contents of books as yet unwritten can be deduced from books now in existence.
Lords and Ladies, p.55

Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass, and on that simple equation rests the whole of L-space. It is via L-space that all books are connected (quoting the ones before them, and influencing the ones that come after). But there is no time in L-space. Nor is there, strictly speaking, any space. Nevertheless, L-space is infinitely large and connects all libraries, everywhere and everywhen. It’s never further than the other side of the bookshelf, yet only the most senior and respected librarians know the way in.
The Globe: The Science of Discworld II, p.38

Thanks to Chris Jones for sourcing the quotes

Hogwarts Library

Hogwarts Library is described as a recognisable library, with some hazardous books in the collection. It is a key part of the story telling of the Harry Potter novels as people (mainly Hermione) seek to find out information. The library in Patrick Rothfuss' books would also be fun to visit.

Another library to think about is that described by Mel Odom in The rover, The destruction of the books and Lord of the libraries. In these the librarians have a key role of content creator, they are curators of content as well, but they also create, going to great lengths at time to do so. This could be a good role model for us (see writing by Mal Booth about this as well).

We have key roles as content creators and co-content creators but sometimes it seems we are reluctant about this, and we should not be.