Mule-based bookmobiles for remote Venezuelan communities

Proyecto Bibliomulas is a Venezuelan initiative to improve literacy in remote and rural areas, by turning mules into travelling bookmobiles. Srsly. And how awesome is that?

Anyone who was not out working the fields - tending the celery that is the main crop here - was waiting for our arrival. The 23 children at the little school were very excited.
"Bibilomu-u-u-u-las," they shouted as the bags of books were unstrapped. They dived in eagerly, keen to grab the best titles and within minutes were being read to by Christina and Juana, two of the project leaders.

BLOG OFICIAL DEL "PROYECTO BIBLIOMULAS"

Venezuela's four-legged mobile libraries (BBC)

(via Bookshelf)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Delightful Creatures • literacy • venezuela

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semiotix

Rural illiteracy, my ass!
travtastic

Epos (library ship)
sockdoll

¿Por qué no biblioburros?

http://elbiblioburro.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsHyN9zj8_o
- Ashen Victor
  
  Porqué una mula es mucho más resistente y grande.
  
  Because a mule is way sturdier and bigger.
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

“Bibliomu-u-u-u-las”

I want a reason to yell that out loud, myself! Awesome concept all around!
Not legal advice. Don’t rely.

Ancient proverb: The donkey bears the mysteries.

Trust the Beeb to still have some classicists on staff.
http://www.facebook.com/wendell Michael Wendell

I swear I’ve seen this mule in an episode of Go Diego Go.

No, wait… that was a llama.
gwailo_joe

that mule is no fool
http://twitter.com/sirkowski Sirkowski

In b4 PeTA.
M Alovert

There was an amazing instance of this in the US during the Depression, as a Works Projects Administration project employing women as horseback librarians to bring books to extremely remote Kentucky communities:
http://10engines.blogspot.com/2010/04/kentucky-pack-horse-librarians.html
joeposts

A pro-literacy mule? Now I have seen everything.
http://profile.yahoo.com/F7HGPKGFTMFOM347SCGEPFN46Y Invisible Man

Anyway, much better a biblo-mule than a coke-mule.
- juepucta
  
  You try swallowing a dozen books to be able to board a plane! Much worse, think of when time comes to get them out.
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

I can’t believe I’m the first comment with this. So, do they have Don Quixote?
Guido

Woot!
I am really glad to see this! Universidad Valle del Momboy was a spin off from some people on my high school, not too long ago, and they have grown, and started awesome projects like this. They go to remote, isolated areas in the mountains of Truillo, high in the andes, without access to many things that children in places like Valera lack. And Valera is a backwards, small city. The world is still full of this kind of places, where the old methods are still useful, where the culture is still old and changing little by little. Soon people living in those places, with the help of mules will have access to us, and I wonder what they’ll have to say to the beautiful mess we have created in the Internet.
jeligula

Very awesome.
http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog

They’ve been doing something similar in Ethiopia:
http://www.ethiopiareads.org/programs/mobile
jrustenhoven

oddly enough we read a book on the subject (from our very conventional library) just this weekend
http://www.amazon.com/Biblioburro-A-True-Story-Colombia/dp/1416997784/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335219112&sr=8-1