Richmond Open Library

Richmond Open Library Welcome to the page for the Richmond Open Library, the independent library committed to giving Richmond-area readers a choice.

Richmond Open Library was conceived as an alternative and complement to the local library systems. As their budgets have shrunk, so have their collections and services, and with them much of the community that needs those resources. Richmond Open Library would like to provide these again. Our "location," "10 Unknown Street," cannot be accurately Google-mapped. (It tried, and we ended up well past

the end of a dead-end, at the edge of a cemetery.) We do not yet have a place to which our patrons may come to read and study, to listen to music, collaborate on ideas, enjoy peace. What we have is a growing collection of materials and the belief that we will soon enough be relocating from 10 Unknown Street and open doors in precisely that place where we are most needed. But there is no getting there without help, and help right now means getting the word out. We need you to share our belief in the necessity of the Richmond Open Library with as many others as you believe would do the same. This is at the top of our wish list. With that fulfilled, more concrete concerns can be more easily dealt with. Share the Richmond Open Library.

10/18/2017

One last post: I have not consulted my partner in ROL, but I'm sure I'll have his blessing: Facebook is not the place for the Richmond Open Library, so I'm taking down the page.This world here, this world of infinitely divided attentions, is an ironic world for our library to attempt to fit into, not a world of honest evaluation of information but of spoonfed hearsay; not a quiet space to absorb ideas and float away on an untethered imagination but a maelstrom of escalating shout-downs. Our vision has always been to be the antidote, the safe place from all of that, but you can't be safe from the devil in hell. We're not done; we're done here.

For--or should I say against--our times.
03/09/2017

For--or should I say against--our times.

Does your library have this book? Want to read it? Let us know.
03/01/2017

Does your library have this book? Want to read it? Let us know.

12/01/2016
Delivered a box of books each to three sheltered bus stops with this sign attached.
11/11/2016

Delivered a box of books each to three sheltered bus stops with this sign attached.

No one's trash now.
10/20/2016

No one's trash now.

09/02/2016

Most productive dive yet! At least ten boxes liberated from a library dumpster. When I'd heard there were "a few boxes" I was excited enough, but I filled the car. Quickly perusing them as I hauled them from the dumpster, I noticed that most of them were not ex-libris--rejected donations, maybe. I'd have taken pictures of the scene were I not still wary enough to want to minimize attention towards me to not use the necessary flash. Hell, I even turned off the headlights as I turned into the library parking lot. In the morning I'll unburden the poor little car and assess the haul. I expect to leave a lot on the curb--there were a lot of common bestsellers that any other library would not be short of, and so would not be needed in our collection--but if I get two boxes of quality titles, I'll be satisfied, and the neighborhood will take the rest off my hands.

09/01/2016

http://www.metafilter.com/108302/It-Was-A-Pleasure-To-Burn
Stumbled upon this thread recently. It's five years old, but the attitudes haven't changed. It talks about the practice of weeding library books and their disposal. One thing struck me: The privilege from which every jack one of these people spoke. The presence of a physical book was simply a preference, that they would read an electronic book if they had to, and if they really had to have a hard copy that was no longer available at their library they would buy it. The wholesale disposal of books from library shelves is, at worst, a mild inconvenience to such people as can take for granted electronic access to books and the money to buy them. What about those people who do not have these privileges? What about the patrons whose fines have reached that arbitrary limit that rescinds their privilege to check out items from the library? What about the people with no fixed address to whom the library won't even issue a card? "Public" library?

I've seen the bare shelves of libraries that don't let any of that get to them. I've dived in their dumpsters to retrieve sparkling white banker's boxes of their discards. What I don't keep for our library I leave on the curb for my neighbors, and the boxes are always emptied. All of the books are in fine shape, but are "old" or haven't been checked out in two years or, yes, "don't look good". (This is not hearsay; I have firsthand knowledge of these practices.) Some of the books too old for the shelf are just old enough to sell on eBay courtesy of such outfits as Shared Knowledge. Many of the books are simply sold out in the library lobby. Never are they given away to the people who paid for them to be on the shelf for free access. That is, they are not worth having around for everyone to read but good enough for the person who can pay for it. Crass.

This is why the Richmond Open Library exists.

08/19/2016

Are you aware of the Five Laws of Library Science?

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his/her book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. The library is a growing organism.

Our local libraries, which will not issue a library card to someone without a fixed address and throw away books that haven't been checked out in two years, or simply don't "look good" on the shelves, all but ignore 2. and 3. We deserve better.

The Five laws of library science is a theory proposed by S. R. Ranganathan in 1931, detailing the principles of operating a library system. Many librarians worldwide accept them as the foundations of their philosophy.[1][2]

05/19/2016

Do any of you folks have experience having rubber stamps made? We gotta brand us some books--a lotta books!

With coffee, a cat in the lap and rain outside, any book will do!
05/07/2016

With coffee, a cat in the lap and rain outside, any book will do!

Join Penguin Random House, the American Library Association, and authors and readers nationwide by celebrating National Readathon Day on Saturday, May 21, 20...

Does anyone have anything by this important but neglected American poet they would like to donate to our poetry collecti...
05/07/2016

Does anyone have anything by this important but neglected American poet they would like to donate to our poetry collection?

Recorded for the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature. Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress Web site.

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Richmond, VA
23220

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(804) 625-8606

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