A periodic insider guide to the joys and struggles of saving books from being pulped and redistributing them amongst the bookless of this world - starting with the neighbours.
From the 8th-12th July, I had the pleasure of gaining work experience at
The Kittiwake Trust's Multilingual Library at Eldon Gardens in
Newcastle.
As a placement, I was given tasks such as shelving, labelling
and cataloguing, as well as having permission to create a map for the
library.
I found the whole week extremely rewarding, and the staff were
excellent - welcoming, patient, helpful and just people that I really
got along with and feel privileged to have met.
I'm currently in sixth
form studying Spanish, English Literature and English Language. I love
words and languages, and just being around books, and I felt the
Multilingual Library could really allow me to demonstrate this, and sure
enough, it did. I would love to go back as a volunteer in the future -
in fact, I would feel honoured to be part of such a dedicated, brilliant
group of people, who run the library of their own accord and their passion
for languages and books.
I felt so at ease in the library, with its
beautiful layout and relaxing atmosphere. It was a week of culture and
learning for me, and I am incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity
to be there for my work experience. I would encourage everyone who has a
love for languages, culture, travelling and linguistics to take out a
membership at the library and meet the amazing staff, and take in the
setting that the team have poured their heart and soul into making
perfect. I became a member while I was there, and I intend to go back
as soon as possible. I hope that many others who come across this hidden
gem of Eldon Garden do the same.
For
well over a year we have been giving books to prison libraries and
education departments. About one year ago we also began giving books
to custody suites, and this year we have begun sending books direct
to people in prison. In all cases the books have met with very
positive reactions. - the letters we receive from prisoners and some
of the librarians prove that books, and some contact with the outside
make a gigantic difference to the way people feel.
OPEN
DAY
On
Sunday November 19 we are again holding an open day - but this time,
instead of sitting back and enjoying poetry and music, we will host a
discussion with the themes ARE PRISONERS OUR RESPONSIBILITY?
WHAT CAN WE DO TO FACILITATE THE REHABILITATION REVOLUTION AND WHAT
IS THE PURPOSE OF IMPRISONMENT? - From our point of view,
obviously we feel that prisoners are our responsibility and we enjoy
doing our best to send people the books they request. As for
rehabilitation, again, that's right up our street as we would love to
see prison leavers running Borderline Books branches around the
country.
The
discussion will be led by former prison governor Mike Kirby. Also on
the panel will be Jason Meecham from Durham Constabulary, who has
been helping spread the word to custody suites around the north;
Helen Attewell, CEO of NEPACS who run visitors centres at prisons in
the North East, Natalie Maidment of CLINKS, and representatives from
Open Gate and Probation (to be confirmed).
We
hope that learning more about the trajectory from police cells,
through prison and out the other side, with all the repercussions for
family life will encourage people to donate generously to help us
with the costs of keeping books flowing into prisons.
ART
AUCTION
To
encourage the spirit of giving, we will then hold an art auction with
some fabulous art pieces donated by Sophie
Howard, Padma Rao, Lesley Ellen Cooperwaite, Anne Curtis, Kathryn
Barnett, Mike Collier, Craig Puranen Wilson, Barrie West, Kathy
Geater, Coralie Morton, Tessa Green, Dreana Bulmer-Thompson, Rob
Winter and more. Our Patrons, David Crystal and Michael Rosen have
donated books and the whole auction will be brought to life by the
delightful actor, comedian and co-presenter of BBC Newcastle's Alfie
and Anna at Breakfast, Alfie Joey.
This is a letter we received recently from a guest of Her Majesty, DK. It is reproduced here with his permission. Needless to say, we sent him a big package of books.
Dear Borderline,
I have seen your details in the HardmanDirectory and thought that I would shoot you off a letter and see if
you happened to have any dictionaries in stock at the moment. I am,
well was, a showman (I grew up on the fairground) and it was not
until I decided to leave the fairground that I thought about learning
to read and write. So two years later I went to a college open day
and said, “Look, I'm 18 years old, I can't read or write, can you
help me?” The lady at the college said that they were holding
English diagnostics at two o'clock and to come back then. So I went
away and looked around at all the stalls for the various courses
(using the good old trick of, “Ah, so what is this all about then?”
So I knew what courses were what, as I didn't have a bloody clue what
any of the signs for the courses said). I returned at two o'clock and
sat the diagnostic (quite literally SAT the diagnostic as I had no
clue what anything said on the screen – apart from "start". I
recognised that as we have that on the control panels for the rides).
I really did try my hardest, but to re-word a well known phrase
slightly, it was extremely difficult when everything was “literally”
a foreign language to you.
To shorten, what could be a story the
“author” drags on forever, I waited about an hour for my results
and then they were in! (I say that with emphasis, because even
sitting here now writing this, I still cannot believe what happened
next!) All the people that completed the diagnostics, myself
included, were called into a classroom on the ground floor by this
ridiculously stern looking lady. We all sat at the desks which were
sat out 3 wide in a row backwards from the front of the class. One,
by one, I sat and watched as she called people up to the front of the
room, she gave them all a piece of paper and muttered something, all
without using any facial expression that might put the potential
student at ease. Then without warning, 5 students in she called my
name. I got up out of the chair and approached the desk at which she
was standing (it was probably at this point blatently obvious that I
did not have high hopes of what was to come, but I certainly was not
expecting this!)
“Is this a joke D---!?” she
shouted at the top of her voice. “You are working at the level of a
3 year old according to this, very funny, we clearly have a class
clown here.” I tried to interject but she still continued, “Right
everyone, D---- here appears to think that it is funny to piss about
and make out that he can't read or write, he also thinks it's funny
to make out that this diagnostic was completed by a 3 year old, well
actually on 2nd thoughts my 3 year old daughter could have
done better than that! Let this be an example to all of you, don't
f**k about and act like kids, you're at college now, you're adults
now so act like them. We don't take fools lightly here.”
Now I am usually extremely polite as
that is how I brought up. But I will allow for this one slip-up given
the cirumstances. When she had finished her rant I calmly said,
“Miss, if you are quite finished, there is no clowning around here,
I am from a family of showmen and have never learnt to read or write
as I have been brought up travelling the country providing fairs for
amazing, decent people like yourself, which I must admit that I have
fully enjoyed my life, but I have always believed that there is
something more to life. So I am here to learn, and from the sounds of
it, you have got your job cut out, because I'm reading and writing at
the level of a 3 year old.
Her face was a picture, and so were the
faces of the other potential twenty students in the room. The
principle of the college, and the tutor herself couldn't apologise
enough and ensured that they would personally see to sorting out all
my funding, and they sorted me out a learning support assistant. I
started at the beginning and gradually worked my way up, and now
years down the line here I am. I can string a half decent sentence
together.
I do apologise for going off on a
massive tangent, I was trying to get to a point where I could explain
that although I had the college providing teaching and the courses, I
had to rely heavily on charities like yourself for books and course
workbooks, as I literally don't have a penny. (This was because my
family turned their backs on me when I left the fair to find
education, because my dad wanted me to inherit all the rides and take
over the family business - but that in itself is a whole different
story.)
So I believe what you do for prisoners
is amazing. My handwriting was horrific and I just happened to
mention it in passing to the charity, two weeks later I received a
handwriting book in the post. I practiced and practiced for months on
end, and now I am at a level where it is at least legible – my
spelling needs major work though and has become my biggest pet hate,
hence one of the reasons why I'm asking for a dictionary.
Again I am really sorry for rambling, I
just hope that my appreciation for what you do comes across during
the later part.
Information,
ideas and feelings. We reckon that these are vital to our lives.
Let’s take them one by one.
We
spend hours and hours every day seeking out and using information.
Just think about it: where to wait for a bus, what’s on the menu,
what’s the price of milk, what’s the weather going to be like
later, what are the football scores? We are sent complicated forms
that ask for information about ourselves, we have to fill in forms to
get what we want and need. We listen to the news and try to figure
out if people are telling the truth about ‘debt’ or ‘Europe’.
Then
again, at some point in every day, we move from this area of
information into ideas: ideas about right and wrong, ideas about how
to best organise the facilities we use in our neighbourhood, in our
place of work; we might well stop to think about ideas about whether
religion can or can not help us figure out how to behave well, how to
see into this world a new-born baby or see out of this world someone
who’s died. A politician might use an idea to throw at us: ‘a
more caring Britain’, ‘for the many, not the few’.
And
then again, we think about feelings all the time. We are bundles of
feelings: anxiety, fondness, irritation, envy, jealousy, love, hate,
sadness, nostalgia, fear. Hardly a minute goes by without us sensing
that another feeling hasn’t just cropped up. Or, we might be
listening to a song, or watching a TV programme and we feel emotions
welling up around a tune, a face, some words, the way two people
behave in a film or a soap.
It’s
quite possible to cope with all this without going to books. We can
do it by relying on TV, films, songs and chat. Put books into the
picture, and a few other things happen. If it’s a story - that is a
picture book for small children, or a novel for older children, young
adults and adults in general - then we engage slowly in the unfolding
of scenes. These scenes pack in an enormous amount: people (or
creatures) interacting, behaving well or badly to each other; people
thinking and feeling certain things that may or may not be the same
as the way they behave; the story-telling of the book giving us ideas
about the characters and setting of where everything’s going on.
Information, ideas and feelings! Now if we talk about what we read
with others, this world of information, ideas and feelings, takes on
another dimension: we compare the lives we’ve been shown in the
story with our own lives.
This
business of comparing our lives with the lives and events in stories
is part of what helps us to cope with the world. Even reading just
one story starts to nibble away at the idea that the only thing going
on in the world is ‘me’. We start to see ourselves not simply as
me and my tribe (whatever that is) but part of society and part of
history.
I
think that books can do this in many different ways: not just novels,
but non-fiction books too, biographies, autobiographies, poetry - all
sorts. They are a vast hoard of information, ideas and feelings
waiting for us to enjoy, use and benefit from.
Michael Rosen June 2017
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And this is what Borderline Books is all about - making sure that everyone has access to books, no matter if they have nothing left in the budget, are currently without a permanent address, serving time in prison or living in a hostel with women and children fleeing domestic abuse, fleeing war in their own country, staying in a hostel for teenagers..... or even sitting in a custody suite for a few hours. Books can not only break the isolation and make people aware of being part of something bigger, they can also offer - for a short time, at least - a free ticket to anywhere your imagination wishes to take you.
The rest of Newcastle and Gateshead are out on the town for the Late Shows, our late show is finally finding the time to write a new blog post. It probably sounds absurd, but so much has been going on that there just hasn't been time to sit down and write about it.
Books have been flying out to various prisons, including Doncaster - the furthest south so far.
We're talking with other prisons a little closer to home - more of this when there's something more definite to report. In the meantime we sent a package of books down to a prison in Devon. They asked specifically for dictionaries and thesauruses for people doing creative writing, studying or doing crosswords. It took a while for them to be checked in, but the men were really happy to get these books.
We are expecting visits from projects in Liverpool, Sheffield and Birmingham in the next few weeks, by which time our friends the kittiwakes down on the Tyne Bridge will be hatching their broods.
And today, we spent a lovely couple of hours down at the Shipley Art Gallery, giving books to Syrian families who were having a celebration. Thanks to Cambridge University Press, we were able to give them a couple of hundred brand new books - easy readers for children and new readers of English, and - most popular - dictionaries.
And the other great news is that we are taking on our first paid employee in mid-June.... but that's another story!
We have contact with all kinds of groups supporting people in all kinds of difficult situations. It's not often that we get feedback, but after putting out a request for 'soundbites' we have been delighted to see how much difference the books really make in people's lives. This post reflects the experiences of organizations working with offenders, ex-offenders, people with mental health issues, and people with dementia.
"A
guy was arrested by 24/7 officers for a domestic related assault to
his partner, when he arrived into custody he was very aggressive, the
custody sergeant explained if he calmed down there was reading
material he would be welcome to use. The detainee quickly calmed down
and became fully compliant. He said that reading helped him calm down
and occupied his mind whilst in custody. The sergeant who authorised
his detention said it made such a difference and the detainee caused
little to no issues.
"A
woman who was arrested for her first offence arrived in custody, she
was quite anxious and very unsure what was going to happen. The
custody staff offered her reading material to put her at ease, when
she left the woman commented that although she would never want to be
in custody again the books helped her calm down."
Chief
Inspector Lisa Hogan, Northumbria Police
Haven
was set up 30 years ago working in conjunction with the probation
service in order to support offenders upon release from custodial
sentences. Latterly Haven offers semi supported disbursed housing
for anyone with a support need from 17 years old with no upper age
limit. Haven have 60 bedspaces within Newcastle/Gateshead (which
includes 5 emergency bed spaces), a Residents Club which is also open
to ex-residents in order to offer support after move on to
appropriate tenancies eg Tyne & Wear Homes/private landlords
scheme/housing associations etc to conquer isolation. Haven operate
a Job Club where residents can access voluntary work/paid
employment/training opportunities etc. making sure they are job ready
for move on. Haven offer monthly outing to our
residents/ex-residents in order to open their eyes to culture,
museums/theatre and amongst these outings is Borderline Books which
is an invaluable addition to Haven and has resulted in residents
using reference books to support their college/university courses, as
well as recreational reading for pleasure. We have set up a small
library in Haven office where residents/ex-residents bring back their
read books and these are recycled for future resident’s pleasure.
We have had a longstanding partnership with Borderline Books which
has been an invaluable service and we remain extremely grateful to
Amina and her team for the support over the years in welcoming our
residents.
The Storybook Cafe is a
mental health cafe, providing a safe space for people to come and
relax, chat or do something that helps them have better mental
health. One of the things we provide is books for people to read in
the cafe or borrow and take home. Books have been important to me as
they have helped improve my mental health by providing escapism into
an entirely different world. This has helped me to have a break from
my own issues, but it has also provided some comfort in the
experiences and feelings of the characters I read about who feel
similar to me. Borderline books has provided 242 books for free,
allowing more people the chance to find some refuge and empathy in
the pages that they can carry round with them. To have access to such
a big range of genres and narratives means there is more chance for
everyone to find something to help them.
Thank you so much, Amy and the Storybook Cafe
“We were reminiscing over the books Shirley used
to read as a child as she searched the bookcase for something to
read. Shirley was extremely happy when she came across a book, ‘Alice
in Wonderland’, which she remembered her father reading to her as a
child!”
Small moments this are so significant in a
person’s life when suffering with dementia as the feelings that
these memories evoke can give a sense of calm and safety in an
otherwise terrifying and confusing world.
We settled into our new location upstairs at 5th Avenue Plaza and unpacked thousands of books.
One of the best things was when we were finally able to donate books to HMP Low Newton, a women's prison in county Durham. It took nearly a year to get that off the ground, but they came for a first load of books and were delighted at the range of subjects on offer. After only a few weeks they returned saying that they needed more books to fill up the shelves as they had not taken enough the first time round.
Open Gate is an organisation supporting women leaving Low Newton and they have also started a small local Borderline Books project for these women.
Later in the year we made contact with HMP Askham Grange in York and HMP Leeds. They came for two visits and were happy to take several hundred books for these two prisons. We are very happy to be able to donate books directly to prisons now and emphasize that they should allow the prisoners to keep any books they particularly like because we can refill the shelves as often as they want. This is in such contrast to the situation a couple of years ago when it was so very difficult to get books into prisons.
In the longer term, we would love to work with organisations supporting people leaving prison to set up local editions of Borderline Books. The project can offer training in a wide range of skills which would help people to find paid work at a later stage. People who love books find it a wonderful way of indulging their passion while doing a useful and creative job.
Another first was a delivery of 200 books to the office of Police and Crime Commissioner Vera (now Dame Vera) Baird. These were for placing in the six custody suites within Northumberland in the hope that they will help make a difficult few hours in detention a little less taxing. We are waiting for some feedback on how this is helping.
We also donated books to a number of care homes, schools, organisations supporting people who are homeless or struggling with dependency issues, refugee organisations and others. We took part in the Teams Festival in the summer and wrecked our gazebo in the wind at the Dunston Festival... These two festivals are about the only occasions on which we give books direct to the public. Many people are over the moon to have access to books they can keep when they may perhaps be having to make use of the local food banks and could not possibly afford the luxury of buying books.
By the end of the year we had found new homes for well over 13,000 books. By the time of the AGM we will have a full set of figures of the numbers of books received and donated as well as the grants we received during the year.
***
Late in the year, our founder, Amina Marix Evans, received a letter saying that she had been nominated for an MBE. After some thought she decided that it would not be right to accept:
First, the concept of Empire is outdated, and given the groups we support,
particularly the refugees, many of whom are in the difficulties they
are in now as a direct or indirect
result of the legacy of the late British Empire, it would have felt like
a slap in the face to them to accept. Also I didn't want letters after
my name that do not denote any kind of academic achievement setting me
apart from those I work with and for. Second, I honestly feel that
if the work of the Kittiwake Trust is held in such high esteem, then it
would be far more appropriate to give an award to the charity and not to
the individual.
The Kittiwake Trust will continue with our work of supporting groups
working with vulnerable and disadvantaged people and of sharing the
delights of words and books in as many languages as we can lay hands on.
If you value our work it would make much more sense to nominate the
Kittiwake Trust for local or national charity awards and to help us
spread Borderline Books to other parts of the country.
South Shields has just opened The Word a totally gorgeous place with wonderful activities based around words, books, poetry, learning and all manner of good things.
When they closed their old Central Library they kindly donated all the old shelving to us, which was fantastic as we never seem to have enough. We are sharing it between Borderline Books and the Kittiwake Trust Multilingual Library, where we are constantly bursting at the seams. In Team Valley we are pretty much sorted, but the library will take another two or three weeks before things are settled in their new positions.
Which reminds me - if you haven't yet visited our 'new' location in Team Valley (same building but upstairs on the other side, where we have been for a year now) you could do much worse than to pick Sunday afternoon on 27 November, when we will hold another Open Day / Fundraiser. There will be poets, music, food, a raffle with some really amazing prizes, and also this time information tables for some of the many organisations we work with on a regular basis. That way you can see how it works, and how well it works.
We have already donated more books this year than in the whole of 2015 - that was 10,053, but we've now passed 10,500 and have some new visitors coming this week who we hope will take a large quantity for people in York and Leeds.
You might have seen a notice that we also donated books to Vera Baird's office to be put in the custody suites (ie police cells). We hope that will encourage some more reading and generally make those first few hours of detention more bearable for all concerned.
This week - in the nick of time before August quit on us, we passed a total of 8000 books donated this year. this means we are back to the average of 1000 books per month that we like to see.
During the summer we received huge numbers of school books where the curriculum is changing (though the maths books should be ok - 2+2 still =4 and H20 still means water.......). some of these books have gone to our friends at BAFA in Sunderland (Book Aid for Africa) some will go to people waiting for decisions on their asylum applications.
We are delighted that HMP Low Newton are now putting shelves around the prison so that people can have more access to books of all sorts. They took 200 a few weeks ago and have just been back for a further 300. We emphasise that they are welcome to allow the women to keep whatever books they want to keep. We can fill the shelves again every month if that's what's needed.
We are fast approaching our 15th birthday - we will celebrate this, together with the first birthday of our little sister, The Kittiwake Trust Multilingual Library at the library in Eldon Garden on 10 September. We hope the cake rises, otherwise it's bread and water for all !
Oh and by the way, we now have a Total Giving account, just in case you are feeling generous.
I am ashamed to see how long ago this blog was updated.
In total, we gave away more than 10,000, that's ten thousand, books in 2015. This is by far our best year ever - in spite of moving twice during the year (and with a stock of perhaps 23,000 books, that is no mean feat..............)
Sadly, we heard that the funding InCommunities in Bradford had for Borderline Books had been cut, so they were going to have to close after being open for a year. Then we heard that the Bradford Bikery would take over the project. The combination is wonderful - people go in to learn how to fix their bikes, and discover a treasure trove of books as well. We've always seen the project as highly flexible, one you can combine with all manner of other things, and this one is perfect!
Once again, we urge people working with vulnerable groups who would enjoy setting something up - think about running a Borderline Books BookSpace........ give books away to other groups working in the same field. - Combine it with sewing groups, cookery classes, keep fit, gardening groups, writing groups........ there's no end to the happy combinations that could be made.
We are very ready to receive more visits. Last year we were averaging 1000 books a month. It is now half way through March and we've given away 1700 books - that's good, but quite a drop compared to last year... fewer than 700 a month. So we gotta do something about that!
Bring people, bring ideas and lets get the show on the road!
We've finally moved all those books upstairs into the West Wing at 5th Avenue Plaza. It took about a month (again) to move all the furniture, shelving and something like 23,000 books up into the new unit. It's very spacious and open... nowhere to hide any mess, so we are going to have to be tidy at all times!
Official opening times are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday Friday, 11.00 - 17.00
occasionally we can be open later if necessary. No Saturdays. And please make an appointment.
In the new year we hope to be open on Wednesdays as well.
We are doing our best to let everyone know that they should come as soon as possible to get books for their clients / members / service users / friends / pupils in time for Christmas.
This is only half the story!
We'll post photos of the children's room next week when everything is in place. Some of the teddies are still on holiday.We'd like to let you know in advance that the carpet is lovely and new and soft and we'll be making sure there are nice spots to sit on the floor with the toddlers and read BOOKS!
So come along soon - it is BIG and we have more books than ever on more subjects than ever and as usual we will not allow groups to leave with silly numbers like 43 if it could be 50 or 86 if it could be 100!
The full address is now:
West Wing (bell 7)
5th Avenue Plaza
Queensway North
Team Valley NE11 0BL
It is now upstairs, but there is a lift. The shelving is much more widely spaced than previously, making it far more accessible for people using wheelchairs. Also the front door on the West Wing side has much better access as there is no parking space plumb in front of the door, as on the East Wing side where we were before, making loading your car a lot simpler!
At last our three-month hibernation is almost over. In July we were asked by our landlord to move to a small temporary unit as it seemed our offices had been leased out.
We have JUST got the keys to a much larger unit upstairs in the West Wing of 5th Avenue Plaza - right opposite our former location.
We will start moving things upstairs once the clocks change.... it will probably take around 2-3 weeks to get things back up and running, but w'll do it in style and you will be delighted with the results.
The space is large and open - not so many small offices as in the old unit, so we will probably have a separate room for all the children's books with the rest of the books in the open space. It's wonderfully light as there are windows on three sides....
Photos of empty offices are really not inspiring - it looks like every other purpose built 80s office suite..... First we will buy a couple of the lovely huge houseplants conveniently on offer at Lidl this week. Once it's looking intriguing, we'll post the pix.
******
While you're waiting, take a trip across the river and visit the fabulous Kittiwake Trust Multilingual Library on the Upper Level, Eldon Garden. It is beautiful, fragrant, relaxing, peaceful and totally gorgeous. There are books in 54 languages and we are making it a place where we can connect language teachers with students and students with teachers.....
Some of the sessions may be held in the library annexe, Verb, right next to Bravissimo. Verb is also used for meetings of Beyond Borders, Culture Connect and Crossings. Let us know if you're looking for a nice place in the city centre to hold meetings, language classes or workshops. We particularly encourage events involving languages, words, learning.
There seem to be too many things on the brink of happening and we've kept putting off making a new post until there was something to announce.
But yes, there IS now a Borderline Books in Bradford. This is being run by Incommunities - Open Field. It opened on March 12... and we are hoping for an update from them on how things are going. The last we heard was 'slow but sure' which is always the best way to start.
Ashlyn and Mina are running this new BookSpace at City House, 23-27 Cheapside, Bradford BD1 4HR. Phone 01274 257788 or email borderlinebooks@incommunities.co.uk for opening times.
*****
In all probability the next new bookspace will be in Durham after which we have our eyes on Carlisle, York, Leeds, Manchester............ Please contact us if you are interested in running a BookSpace where you live or work.... it's a very simple principle:
Recipe for a BookSpace
Ingredients:
1 or more human beings
(size and shape immaterial)
1) That everyone has the right to enjoy reading a book
2) that books are not suitable for mashing.
Generous
quantity of books
Method:
Take a book, place a rubber stamp on fly-leaf and/or title page.
Put it in a crate / box / shelf / heap
Repeat
indefinitely
Contact
local organizations supporting refugees and migrants, homeless
people, survivors of domestic violence and their children, victims of
trafficking, former prisoners and others with limited or no access
to books and tell them free books are available for them.
Invite
them to come along and choose the books they need.
Repeat
indefinitely
For your very own
office in a box, initial supply of 500 books and the benefits of
experience, write to books@borderlinebooks.org
We had a really good write-up in The Journal - thanks Jemma Crew for that.
You can still read it here
or here!
How Tyneside charity is taking unwanted books and giving them new life
By Jemma Crew
The Borderline Books project aims to encourage greater literacy and foster a love of reading and books
Amina Marix Evans at Borderline Books in Gateshead
Imagine a hideaway containing thousands of free books just waiting to be picked up off the shelves and enjoyed.
A place filled to the rafters with words - hundreds of thousands of
words crammed between each creased spine, filling each well thumbed
page, words spilling off the shelves and out of boxes, stacked
precariously in wheelbarrows and other similarly odd and out-of-place
receptacles.
You might not expect such a literary treasure trove to be tucked away
in a corner of a remote Team Valley trading estate. But that’s the
surprising location of Borderline Books, a project which collects used
and unwanted books and redistributes them to vulnerable and deprived
communities in the North East.
One cold, clear winter morning, I met Amina Marix Evans, the woman behind the exciting scheme.
The idea for Borderline Books was born early in the morning of September 11, 2001, when Amina was living in the Netherlands.
She said: “I was a literary agent since 1980 – long before PDFs. So I was receiving parcels of books every day.
“The whole thing came about because I thought: there are all these
organisations sending books to places like Africa, and meanwhile we have
Africans living in the next street on a shoestring who would love to
have some books for their kids.
Claire Marron at Borderline Books in Gateshead
“We set up in Gateshead
in the summer of 2011. At the same time, a publisher I knew contacted
me and said ‘We are clearing out our archives – there are about 200
boxes’. So we had this thing and then it got bigger and bigger. And now
we have this wonderful space.”
A space appreciated by Sam Connor, 42, a support coordinator for
Gateshead Women’s Refuge, which provides a safe place for women and
children fleeing difficult situations such as domestic abuse.
She said: “We’ve been coming for years, and Amina always makes people very welcome. It is an absolutely great idea.
“I am a great one for thinking that knowledge is power. Lots of the
women do not have any aspirations about their future, so just getting
them back into reading a novel can do wonderful things. And it’s
something they may not have done before, bearing in mind many of them
have been in abusive relationships without much say as to what they do.
It is a way of encouraging them to do something for themselves.
“It brings all kinds of benefits. Last year the women were going
through a phase where they were enjoying cooking so they went to get
some cookery books. Books are quite expensive to buy – especially
reference books. Because of this they were able to continue cooking.”
As the name might suggest, Borderline Books thrives on being a truly
inclusive service, crossing boundaries of race, colour, age, wealth and
health throughout the North East.
The project, which is run by the Kittiwake trust and has a sister
project in the Netherlands, donated a record total of 7,106 books in
2014. It shows no sign of slowing down, with funding from places
including MG NorthEast, the Hospital of God at Greatham, the Jill
Franklin Trust and Gateshead Council.
Visitors donated a further £600 to the cause, and all the initial
furnishings were either recycled, freecycled or donated – they only
set-up purchases being rubbish bins and a washing-up bowl. From this
humble beginning the idea has blossomed, and as it stands in early 2015,
Amina and her team of volunteers have supplied books to more than 70
organisations, ranging from autism support groups to prisons to schools.
Amina Marix Evans at Borderline Books in Gateshead
These come from many sources: direct from publishers, from
individuals keen to empty their shelves – and companies such as Nexus
who have promised to give books left behind on public transport that
have not been claimed.
Amina said: “In spite of the large number of books we gave away in
2014, we nearly always receive more than we give away. We really need to
drive home the fact that local organisations supporting marginalised
and vulnerable people can come to us and get books totally free of
charge.
“There was a woman in Middlesborough who set up a big literacy
library last year. There were families with no books at home and she
said: ‘Why don’t you join the library?’ and they said ‘But if the baby
or the dog mess up the books we are going to have to pay and we cannot
afford it’. So they were scared of joining – which is awful.”
“I encourage organisations to come once by themselves and see that I
am not kidding, and then come again with a group of people.”
David Palmer, 39, is the office manager for SHAID, a Single Homeless
Action Initiative in Durham which provides a peer-support group for men
in and around Stanley. He has brought groups to visit the BookSpace
several times.
He said: “A lot of our group members have been doing art work. The
service has been a great resource on how to paint and draw. We now have a
whole wall of canvases made by the men, and some of that has been
directly inspired by the books.
“A lot of the people we see are very isolated and don’t have much
money. We don’t have many book stores in the Stanley area and many
people don’t have the confidence to travel to Newcastle alone. So we go
as a group – last year we went four times.”
Danny, 35, first attended a SHAID meeting in 2012. He now volunteers
for the organisation, and is on job seekers allowance while he looks for
employment. Just one of the men who has directly benefited from the
service, Danny has been making use of the selection of art books to
improve his painting skills.
He said: “SHAID has really helped me, and now I am volunteering in
the office. I might end up doing an admin course, so if I can get books
on that it would really help us.”
Borderline Books in Gateshead
He added: ‘I’m also interested in fiction and autobiographies, but it
can be very difficult to find certain books, I’m hoping to visit later
this year and I think I will be spoilt for choice when I do.”
While the overwhelming majority of the organisations benefiting from
the project are North East-based, there are exceptions. Limerick Prison,
in Ireland, for example, was sent a shipment of books after Amina heard
that its library had very few books for women.
The organisation also delivered a collection of large-print books to
the Joseph Rowntree retirement village in Scarborough, as well as 700
books to Bradford, where a new BookSpace will be opening in March. It’s
hoped that this branching out will lead to more BookSpaces being set up –
Amina has dreams for cities like Leeds and Manchester to host their
own.
And outside of the UK the project has also made its mark. As part of
Gaza Toy Drive, over 200 books are in the process of being sent to
children and students in Gaza, and in 2013 300 books were donated to
children in a German village.
When it comes to the future, it’s clear that Amina is brimming over
with ideas, much like her shelves filled to bursting with books.
There are plans to continue holding Wordplay sessions, creative
explorations of language and games to encourage young people who do not
enjoy reading to leap that barrier and discover the joy of words. (“In
my opinion there should be a lot of laughter attached to word-play”).
A multi-lingual library of 40+ languages is due to open in the next
few weeks in Newcastle city centre, where the hope is that volunteers
from different communities will take care of the shelves of books in
their own language.
She also wants to visit some women’s refuges in the area, to “make
them feel better about themselves” through something akin to
‘pampering’, though Amina is loathe to use the word, with all its
connotations of idle luxury. (“These are the people who need it most,
and they aren’t going to pay a penny for it”, she says, almost
defiantly.”)
But realistically, Amina is just one person, and her dreams can’t simply be imagined into reality.
There’s much practical groundwork to cover: paperwork and funding
applications, the sorting and stamping of books, and searching for new
premises and volunteers.
“While we welcome book donations, they tend to come automatically,
while letting organisations know we exist and there really isn’t a
‘catch’ to it, requires a lot of outreach.”
Motivated by the belief that books can transform lives - “free books,
free minds” - Amina is determined to ensure that nobody, whatever their
background, feels that reading is off-limit: “We are interested in
working with Probation Services to have new BookSpaces run by people
leaving prison - as Borderline Books offers experience that could
prepare people for working in a shop, library, warehouse or office -
perhaps combining it with literacy classes, writing groups or other
projects.”
For more information please visit www.borderlinebooks.org.
Here we are in 2015 and I didn't even get here in time to say Happy New Year.....
2014 was a record year for us - we gave away a total of 7,106 books, which is wonderful as it shows that we are needed and more people are starting to see the value in giving away free books.
One of the big pieces of news at the end of the year was that we delivered 700 books to Incommunities - Open Field, who will open a Bradford branch of Borderline Books in March. We are hoping that this could be the start of the spread of Borderline Books to Leeds, Manchester, York, Carlisle.... wherever there are people who are homeless, women's refuges, hostels for young people, people returning to the community from prison....... which is basically any town large enough for Boots or McDonalds........ The idea is very simple and it can be carried out in many different ways to support whoever is running and using the project. Please contact us if you need more information. books [at] borderlinebooks.org
This year we are taking on a number of new volunteers to help with outreach, office management and generally keeping things going so that some of us are able to go out and meet people and see how the books are being used in various places.
We had a visit in January by a group from Carr Hill Primary School who had taken our Gingerbread House to school before Christmas. They collected a HUGE amount of books for us - books they had grown out of and books the staff and parents had donated - totally wonderful. They had a good time choosing some new books for themselves and a friend or parent. Carr Hill are planning to bring more children down to use in the next few weeks.
New Contacts this year include Riverside Community Health Project, who are proposing to provide plenty of free books to their service users (could we not just call them humans, visitors, friends?), Making Winter Warmer, who took lots of warm clothes, toiletries and other items people had donated to us to be passed on, and Gateshead Evolve, who have fantastic plans for supporting people in recovery. We are very much looking forward to working closely with them in the near future.
It's really important for us to keep making new contacts with organisations supporting vulnerable and marginalised groups in need of books. If we don't keep up with the tsunami of books donated to us, then the whole thing is pointless.
As for Kindles etc.... the number of people who tell us they bought an e-reader two or three years ago, or were given one as a present, but they
just don't use them any more is amazing :-) [snigger!]
I felt so at ease in the library, with its
beautiful layout and relaxing atmosphere. It was a week of culture and
learning for me, and I am incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity
to be there for my work experience. I would encourage everyone who has a
love for languages, culture, travelling and linguistics to take out a
membership at the library and meet the amazing staff, and take in the
setting that the team have poured their heart and soul into making
perfect. I became a member while I was there, and I intend to go back
as soon as possible. I hope that many others who come across this hidden
gem of Eldon Garden do the same.
