Every once in a while I come across something that is so culturally descriptive it's amazing. While walking around one neighborhood in Frankfurt, I saw a metal and glass box that was a little smaller than a phone booth (look at the picture if you're too young to know what a phone booth is):
When I got closer I could see that it was full of books and it was UNLOCKED! What? Did someone forget to lock these books up?!? Not at all. This kiosk is apparently some sort of book-exchange system.
Using Google Translate, I determined the note on official letterhead that's attached to the side says something along the lines of "This community-sponsored free book exchange is open 24 hours per day and you are welcome to take a book and bring it back when you're done. Please leave books that you feel others might enjoy. Books for children are on the bottom shelf."
Germans are known for being super smart, very systematic, and honest among others. This book kiosk pretty much sums it up for me. I love the idea of a community-based book exchange system...now if I can just figure out how to load them on my Kindle
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I tried to share your public book exchange facility in Frankfurt article and picture.
ReplyDeleteHowever the legend of the shared link on my facebook page was 'cybergHag' comment.
Please, do something about this technical sharing irregularity. Thank you.
Carlos Guttendorf Cipriano
Carlos - sorry about the sharing problem. I've tried to solve it before but it's a facebook caching problem and I can't fix it.
DeleteThe best way to share it (a work around) is:
1. Copy the entire address below:
http://www.whereisdarrennow.com/2011/06/frankfurts-book-kiosks.html
2. Paste the URL in the facebook status space.
Hopefully that'll work for you. Again, I'm sorry that I can't help more. Oh, and thanks for reading!