Portland's Street Librarian Brings Books to the Homeless
By Michael Kelley Aug 12, 2011Twice a week Laura Moulton mounts her bicycle and trundles a small trailer stuffed with about 40 books into downtown Portland, OR. Moulton is the street librarian, and the founder of Street Books, which is a mobile lending library for homeless people.
"I am a writer and a big reader of books. I've always valued the power of a good story," Moulton said. "When I thought about doing this project the idea of providing good stories to people who lived outside was compelling to me. Providing books to people who can't get a regular mainstream library card that's central to the mission," she said.
The library, which started up in June, works on trust. Patrons can sign up for a library card without having to provide any form of identification or proof of residence, which a regular library requires. They then can borrow any book from Moulton's cart. There is no due date but each book has a card in a pouch on the inside of the cover that Moulton keeps to track circulation.
"I definitely had naysayers in the beginning who said 'You'll never see those books again,' " Moulton said. "But I've had a really great rate of return."
Moulton sets up shop for four-hour shifts on Wednesdays at gritty Skidmore Fountain and on Saturdays at Park Blocks near Portland State University. The library card contains the locations and hours of operation so patrons know where to go to return their books.
"I just say look for me and I'll look for you," Moulton said.
One patron, a young man, came to Moulton one day and told her he had terrible news.
"I was imagining the worst things, like somebody had been killed," Moulton said. "But he said 'I totally ruined the copy of Hellboy you loaned to me.' "
The patron's conscientiousness struck Moulton, and she reassured him that his concern and courtesy were more important than the loss of the title. He said he just kept picturing Moulton looking through her cart for the missing edition of Hellboy.
"The personal connection was kind of awesome," Moulton said.
The Regional Arts & Culture Council, which serves the Portland tri-county area, gave Moulton a $5000 grant to help keep the library working through the end of August. Moulton has used some of the grant money to pay Sue Zalokar to help staff the cart.
Zalokar writes about the project on her blog, and she also gave an interview in a five-minute documentary film on YouTube by Travis Shields about the project.
"There are so many barriers for people who are living outdoors who don't have regular mailing addresses or identification possibly, and so the look of just surprise and joy that they're going to be able to take a book with them, enjoy that, and that we trust them that when they're done with it they're going to bring it back," she said, describing the benefit of being involved.
Portland's Multnomah County Library has a program through which patrons can donate books to shelters and transitional housing centers, but the material is only available to clients of those shelters.
Moulton, an aspiring novelist and mother of two young children, had previously worked in a shelter in Provo, UT, and she also had lived near the St. Francis Food Bank in Portland. Conversations she had with some of the homeless people, like a man named Quiet Joe who shared Moulton's love of the writer A.B. Guthrie, stuck with her and made her realize that she also wanted to document the stories that her patrons had to tell.
So, whenever possible, she includes on the library's website a picture of the patron with the book he or she borrowed.
"I am documenting a very particular group of people in the summer of 2011 in downtown Portland," Moulton said.
The level of support from "housed" people has been a pleasant surprise, Moulton said, and the project has used books to help close a gap between the more affluent and the less fortunate.
"The interaction often gets narrowed down to one person standing outside a grocery store asking for help and another person going into the store," Moulton said. "But people can stand outside at a cart and have a conversation over books that has nothing to do with their inside or outside status and that's been a cool thing," she said.
Book donations have been pouring in and filling up Moulton's cellar, and Moulton said that the project is going to extend for a few weeks into September, past the grant's expiration date.
"There is definitely enough interest, and I'm now looking at ways to have this live on," she said.
