Bringing Books to the Homeless By Bike

Let us know praise, Laura Moulton.



From a piece in the Christian Science Monitor...



Ms. Moulton is Portland’s mobile librarian. Since early June Moulton has been bringing books to the public with her library-on-wheels Street Books, an outdoor library for people who live outside.



“The power of the book,” she says, “offer[s] a way to transport oneself out of a current reality.” Books are also “a tool to help pass time, which a lot of people living outside have a lot of.”



Moulton, a novelist and mother of two young children, bikes her library to Skidmore Fountain and Park Blocks – near Portland State University – on Wednesdays and Saturdays respectively. She brings about 40 or 50 books with her for each shift. But she says her basement is full of paperbacks that have been donated to her since the project began.



Each book holds an “old school” pocket on the inside cover with a loan card inside. Street Books patrons receive a library card that they can use to check out as many books they desire at a time.



“Being able to give them a card and tell them, ‘I hope to see you again’ – that’s a powerful thing because these are people who cannot get a library card [at the local library] because they have no address,” Moulton says. Her patrons show a high-level of accountability in returning books, which contradicts some assumptions about homeless people.