Jumbie Library

Jumbie Library is a shelf in a Mas camp. It is an analog and digital library maintained by the collective Alice Yard (https://aliceyard.blogspot.com/), in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

It was initiated by one of the collective members, Kriston Chen, as a pavement project for the local community. Makeshift shelves were installed inside and outside the Alice Yard space and stocked with donated books. Neighbours and pedestrians are welcome to come read and pick up and leave books.

Kriston describes the library:

In keeping with the values of our space — sharing, relationships, collaboration, play — the library was formed in hope to re-introduce a semblance of a reading space in Belmont, Port of Spain — an historical neighbourhood currently experiencing a widening literacy gap between the old and young generations. In addition, Alice Yard has a small risograph printer set up in the space to imagine and create a version of a Belmont library in years to come.

During the workshop series Parallel Library Services, the Jumbie Library was extended to include a digital library running on Bibliotecha. The appeal of using Bibliotecha was to maintain the locality of the original project while sharing digital texts.