Invited by North Flatbush Ave BID, the Uni landed in Park Slope/Prospect Heights on a small strip of road which advocates hope will be pedestrianized someday. For an afternoon, we helped residents imagine the possibilities. We started the deployment on the shady side of the street, until one of our brighter (and colder) librarians suggested moving the Uni into the sun. Bingo—patrons streamed over and began reading. Advantage, portable library. Thanks to volunteers Kelly Blanchat, Meghan Dowell, Leigh Hurwitz, and Pascale Nijhof.
A year ago we set up the Uni on a strip of road in Queens with the Queens Museum. Today, that place is a thriving pedestrian plaza where we’ve created a pop-up reading room eight times. We’re keeping an eye on the triangle at Flatbush and 6th Avenue.
i am very interested in doing a project like this in our town. where could i find instructions on building the mobile bookcase as well as those plastic seats?
Great question! Right now, we’re capable of fabricating the kit for libraries and others, but we don’t have a set of executable plans that we can offer. To get there, we would need to invest in standardizing the fabrication process. Right now, we partner with a small group of designers/fabricators who have worked with us from the start. They help us refine and improve the design each time we fabricate. In the future, I can imagine widening this process via an open source design project, but that will take some time to plan and do well. Feel free to email us via the contact page on this site if you have more questions. Thanks!