Editorial
Front Page - Friday, June 25, 2010
Common Shelf teaches sharing, conserving and literacy love for all
Erica Tuggle
Vanessa Jackson, a graduate of the Leadership Chattanooga 2010 class and part of the group that developed the Common Shelf speaks at the unveiling of the children’s book, “Common Shelf,” in the plaza of the Creative Discovery Museum.
- Photo provided
Take a book. Leave a book. Tell a friend. The concept behind the Common Shelf project and growing Chattanooga movement is simple. Yet, the key component to keeping the jewel of shared literacy alive is that the community embraces the idea and makes it its own.
A group of eight from the most recent Leadership Chattanooga class came together and gifted the community with two book shelves that stand in public places and allow anyone to take a book, encourages them to leave one in its place and urges them to tell a friend. The first shelf, established in Miller Plaza in April, came from the idea they found in a blog from Hanover, Germany, where a public bookshelf was.
Team member Rebekah Marr of Maclellan Foundation, Inc. says, “I think we thought that if this concept could work anywhere it could work in Chattanooga.”
She says it already fit projects that were already ongoing in Chattanooga involving locality, green initiatives and the idea of bringing people together to share and exchange. It also benefits the many people who work or spend time downtown, she says.
Soon after the Miller Plaza shelf, another was erected in the plaza of the Creative Discovery Museum, this one laden with children’s books.
Marr says, “The kid’s shelf became really important, too, because getting kids to read at an early age is necessary for success in later life.”
Mindy Benton, a member of the Common Shelf team who also owns her own business, “Meals by Mindy,” says there has been much positive feedback from museum visitors who see this unique Chattanooga offering teaching children to share, conserve resources and about the love of reading.
“When you look at the statistics, it is amazing how many households don’t have a single book,” Benton says. “It’s nice that we’ve provided this free resource to those who might otherwise have not been able to purchase a book.”
Although there has been skepticism whether this project would work, the team members say they were intent on putting their effort into a project that would live beyond their Leadership Chattanooga experience. Marr says she knows it will take some time for the community to adjust to the idea, but after awhile, Chattanooga will take ownership and it will be “our thing.”
McKay Used Books and CDs came through to help with a large one-time donation for the Miller Plaza shelf, and stamped all the books they donated so they will know not to buy any of those books back. United Way’s Imagination Library is also a partner of Common Shelf, but the demand on the museum’s shelf has outweighed their resources in keeping the shelf stocked, Benton says. Then there has been the generosity of Chattanooga citizens as individuals have donated books, used the shelves by following the three-part mantra and have spread the love of literacy. More of this is essential, Benton says, as the museum’s shelf is in need of books from all the non-local visitors who visit the shelf and have no book to leave in the place of the one they take.
“We need the community to understand what they are, where they are and need them to put books on them,” she says. “The one at [the museum] is filling a need because the books are getting gone. We just need them to come back.”
The members of the Common Shelf team are developing stickers for the inside of the books to remind those who take books to replenish the stock, are working on an email campaign to remind museum visitors to bring a book along when they come to visit and are sending out emails to free-cycle groups to donate books and keep them out of the landfills. Benton says she is working with a council she is on in North Hamilton County to establish cases in that area, because of the need to have books where people are.
Benton says, “All of us want it to live on and grow, and the only way we can do this is make sure these are successful.”
Team member Telky Mur-phy, of Walden Security, says she wants the project to succeed because of the children’s literacy opportunities she is working to instill in her own two young children.
“I think it’s important to pass that love of reading on, and that’s one of the main interests with the museum,” she says. “I think literacy is important in this time when people can’t afford to buy a book but can share resources.”
The goal of Common Shelf is to see more of them sprout up in Chattanooga and around the country.
“Nothing would thrill me more than to be in some other city some day and see a bookshelf sitting out on the sidewalk,” Benton says.
For information on Common Shelf, visit their blog at http://thecommonshelf.blogspot.com/.
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