Check out this great little story from the New York Times, “Acclaimed Colombian Institution Has 4,800 Books and 10 Legs.” It’s about Luis Soriano, a Colombian teacher who travels around his part of the country almost every weekend with his “Biblioburro,” two burros named Alfa and Beto that carry a library on their backs.
“I started out with 70 books, and now I have a collection of more than 4,800,” said Mr. Soriano, 36, a primary school teacher who lives in a small house here with his wife and three children, with books piled to the ceilings.
“This began as a necessity; then it became an obligation; and after that a custom,” he explained, squinting at the hills undulating into the horizon. “Now,” he said, “it is an institution.”
A whimsical riff on the bookmobile, Mr. Soriano’s Biblioburro is a small institution: one man and two donkeys. He created it out of the simple belief that the act of taking books to people who do not have them can somehow improve this impoverished region, and perhaps Colombia.
Hat tip to Aud.
Mighty Red Pen 