What to do when the library you want to visit is closed for renovation? Chances are you encounter a library surprise in the street because the world is ultimately a good place!

Library	Mini library at Manhattan Ave/Java St
Place	Brooklyn, NY, USA
Coordinates	40.731556, -73.954406

I was browsing through old pictures from my first trip to New York City in 2017, in search of libraries to post here. At the top of my mind was Beinecke Library because they have a similar stone facade thing going (veined marble) as the UNAM central library (tecali/Mexican onyx). I found plenty of visited libraries (more than I remembered…!) and I also found the Greenpoint Library that I didn’t visit, due to it being closed for renovations.

However, the disappointment soon turned into joy when I a few blocks from there ran into a Mini library at the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Java Street! As you can see in the picture this old newspaper box was turned into a mini library by Urban Libraries Unite. I am unfamiliar with the organisation, but I liked this mini library. I’ve seen this kind of small library appear in many places all over the world, and the initiative is usually by a city, a local library, a local community, a private person, or an organisation (as is the case here).

The fact that a library – the very epitome of shared economy and knowledge – can pop up anywhere, by anyone, shows that there is some kind of public ownership to the idea of a library. Is this the pinnacle of democracy or what?

Other brilliant things about the Greenpoint area was the bar with a Lord of the Rings marathon on New Year’s Day (this is the most brilliant thing ever and I can’t for the life of me understand why this is not a common occurence everywhere? Move over Ivanhoe!) and that they had an Aaron Swartz mural. I wonder if it’s still around?

Aaron Swartz was a brilliant computer programmer and internet activist who passed away on 11 January 2013. He was involved in development of RSS, Reddit, CC licences, and Markdown (to name a few things) and a political activist advocating for a free and open web. MIT and JSTOR will forever have a stain on their name for their role in his far too early demise.

There’s a really good documentary about Swartz, The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, that you should watch if you haven’t already. As bonus content to this post, here is my go to desktop background, as well as my inspiration and compass in my work and mission as a librarian.

Come to think of it, maybe the library of the week – of every week – is the internet. The internet as Aaron Swartz would have designed it. I’ll end this post with another quote by Swartz:

”Be curious. Read widely. Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity.”