In a city like Valencia, not precisely lacking second -hand librariesa project has been born that goes beyond the mere business with volumes that have already lived one or more readings. It’s about ‘The Free Books Club ‘, a mixture of bookstore, paper trace, social club and NGOs Bibliophile that, in exchange for a minimum fee, allows its partners to take all the books they want.
Its responsible is Rafael Soriano, who transmits an enthusiasm for reading perfectly In line with the philosophy of the premises: “All books are jewelry, some need a little mime and that is the goal of the club: save the books, pass them from good hands to others and in that way, among all, to have an immense library of people who want to continue keeping the books.”
All books They deserve be read (As Rafael says, “a book can be a brick, but if you find a page, a paragraph, a text that tells you something, is already a good book”) and therefore preserved. That is why the Free Books Club ‘has an affordable partner share, 11 euros a year, which allows you to take all the books that are desired (To donate it is not even necessary to be a partner), return them or keep them if desired. The intention of the club is that no book is discarded, and of course, that leads to problems.
The main one is that Rafael stopped counting the specimens in the premises when he reached 200,000, and the lack of space has forced him to stop classifying, archiving, listing and even restore those volumes they need. In the original place there are no more volumes, which has led them to resort to “partners who have some space at home, a garage, a small warehouse. When someone requests a large rescue, let’s say ten, twelve, fourteen boxes of books, in the premises of Valencia they do not fit.”
The project has thus became a completely collaborative idea: the website centralizes the calls for help in search of space, and They estimate that right now they will be around 300,000 “saved” booksas Rafael likes to say. There are future and expansion plans although at the moment the relief comes from projects as another open club in Padrón (A Coruña) with similar operation.
An agreement with emails has also been reached so that the partners can exchange books directly without going through the Valencia premises, again with the website as a meeting point. Although Rafael’s ambition goes further, and would like to see premises like his in other provinces, and “that the partners can take a book in Valencia, leave it in Cáceres, take one in Cáceres and leave it in Barcelona.”
Computer to Guardian de Books
Rafael Soriano started his career as a computer programmer: “I started computer studies before there were computer faculties. In the year 85 I started from 88 I dedicated myself to programming for different clients. In the end the fort of my programming was the management of bars and restaurants. “Later he made the leap to the other side of the screen:” For having met the sector, I was as manager of a bar-restaurant for a year, with thirty-so many employees on the beach. “
After dedicating almost ten years he transferred him and stayed “a little in limbo: I am not yet retired, but I don’t want to be at home, even if I have some resources to endure.” And in this way the club was born: “A little like Hobby, a little as a refuge.” And near the sea, “because I like to swim, see dawn swimming.”
A completely born project of devotion to the printed page and has set in something more than a bookstore: A home for old books that serves as a transit in search of new houses. Or as Rafael says, “it is an alchemy workshop, that is, everything that is there is paper, it is an piled paper, but in the right hands it becomes gold.”
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