Library Parks and Mules Bring Literature to South American Communities

By Laura Galos -- Críticas, 8/15/2007

Libraries play a defining role in social landscapes, though rarely are their effects more evident than in recent developments in Colombia and Venezuela. Medellín, a city formerly characterized as the world's deadliest due to the violence of Colombia's cocaine wars, is undergoing a social renaissance thanks to the efforts of its highly popular mayor, Sergio Fajardo, and the products of his educational and social planning initiatives.

According to an article published last month in the New York Times, Fajardo's projects include the construction of five Parques Biblioteca, or Library Parks, each with a library or museum in the center, providing common space for social interaction, recreation, and education. The largest Library Park, the Parque Biblioteca España, is situated in Santo Domingo, a poverty-stricken area that is home to 170,000 residents. It houses not only a library, but an auditorium, art gallery, day care center, and rooms with public access computers.

While Fajardo's expensive projects have their critics, his insistence that "Our most beautiful buildings must be in our poorest areas" is transforming the social landscape of Medellín.

With the help of a mule

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, the University of Momboy is going beyond walls to bring library materials to schoolchildren in the Andes. There, bibliomulas, or book mules, carry books up into rural villages like Calembre. The project leaders who guide the mules also spend time reading with the children. The children and adults of Calembre are enthused by the book project, and organizers are considering other uses for the mules, such as the transport of medicine. Technology enables some mules to also serve as cyber-mules and cine-mules, as they are loaded up with laptops and projectors.

"Spreading the joy of reading is our main aim," Christina Viera, one of the project leaders, said to local media. "But it's more than that. We're helping educate people about other important things like the environment," adding that almost all of the children there are planting trees.