Rubbish collectors in the Turkish capital of Ankara have set up a library boasting thousands of works that would otherwise have been swallowed up by landfills.
The books had been left out on residential streets together with other refuse for collection, sparking the idea to recycle them for a whole new readership.
Opened more than seven months ago by one district’s garbage collectors and their manager, the library is housed in a disused brick factory that was already serving as a base for the workers. The staff have also started a musical band with discarded metal objects and rubbish containers for instruments.
The brick factory, abandoned 20 years ago, is now a thriving space where staff can spend their break perusing the shelves stacked with some 4,750 books.
Open to the public
Originally intended just for the refuse workers and their families so they could borrow books for up to 15 days, it is now open to the public too, said Emirali Urtekin, the site’s manager, whose office is equipped with other rescued items like magazines and a typewriter.
There are another nearly 1,500 books yet to be placed on the shelves as more are rescued and now donated, he added.
The books have so far been sorted into 17 categories, and counting, ranging from romance novels, economics textbooks, thrillers and children’s fiction.
The library boasts a variety of works by top foreign and Turkish authors, including J.K. Rowling, Charles Dickens, J.R.R. Tolkien and Orhan Pamuk.
It’s accessible 24 hours a day for the refuse workers and has its own librarian, paid by the municipality: 20-year-old Eray Yilmaz.
According to the municipality, the new service is the only kind of library in the district open to the public.
“Reading books develops a person’s intelligence, encourages new ideas... and here we introduce those new ideas from books to people,” enthused Mr. Yilmaz.
“This is something that makes a person beyond happy. I take books to my mother too.”
Malik Ercan, one of several disabled staff members, said he took books home to his wife and child and that the library was drawing those outside of the city as well. “Recently I showed my cousin around who had come from (the central Turkish province of) Sivas. They had heard about it in the news. They wanted to see it.”
The library has received plenty of local and international attention, leading to the arrival of more books and not just from rubbish bins.
Gaining support
People from other Turkish cities now even pay the postal costs to send books to the library, Mr. Urtekin said, while refuse collectors continue to gather unwanted books on their daily rounds.
“We’re getting many visits from members of the public but also donations. They say: ‘This is such a good project, we want to support it as well’,” Mr. Urtekin said.
The manager said that later in the year they will create a mobile library and visit some Ankara schools every 15 days so more children have access.
It will serve schools without libraries or with a limited choice on their shelves.
Students will also benefit during the visits from musical performances by “Tin Group” — made up of 11 workers.
The group started around the same time as the library opened, Mr. Urtekin said.
“We are happy,” the manager said. “It has given us a different identity.”
