Homeless Outreach in Volumes: Books by Bike for ‘Outside’ People in Oregon

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PORTLAND, Ore. — A homeless man named Daniel was engrossed in a Barbara Kingsolver novel when his backpack was stolen recently, and Laura Moulton was determined to set things to right.

Ms. Moulton, 44, an artist, writer and adjunct professor of creative nonfiction, did not know Daniel’s last name, his exact age, or really even how to find him — they had met only once. But she knew the novel, “Prodigal Summer,” and that was a start. So, armed with a new copy of the book, off she went.

Such is the life of a street librarian.

This city has a deeply dyed liberal impulse beating in its veins around social and environmental causes, and a literary culture that has flourished like the blackberry thickets that mark misty Northwest woods. It is also one of the most bike-friendly, if not bike-crazed, urban spaces in the nation, as measured by commuters and bike lanes. All three of those forces are combined in Street Books, a nonprofit book service delivered by pedal-power for “people living outside,” as Ms. Moulton, the founder, describes the mission.

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A concrete reality anchors Street Books to the real word: Portlanders are readers. The Multnomah County Library has the third-highest circulation among public libraries in the nation, after New York’s and King County’s in Seattle, according to the American Library Association’s public library division. The ranking is all the more impressive for Multnomah’s size, having only a little more than half of King County’s population, and a quarter of New York’s.



Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/us/homeless-outreach-in-volumes-books-by-bike-for-outside-people-in-oregon.html?_r=3

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