Applied Learning Global Development Studies

Hi everyone! We are Ray Yi Cao and Kevin Wang from the Applied Learning Global Development Studies (AL GDS) class.

In our project for AL GDS, we focused on improving the education of children and adults in our local Jinqiao community. Reading is important due to its benefits to the brain and to physical and mental health, but a person can only get these benefits if they read books, and one cannot read books if books are not available. After considering different concepts for a solution, we determined that an effective way to allow people to be exposed to more books is through building and installing a public bookcase or sidewalk library near the guard post at Concordia’s Huangyang road gate. Right now, the library has already been installed by us and can be accessed from outside campus.

A public bookcase is designed to be a small box from which people can freely and anonymously donate and borrow books without the rigor associated with formal libraries. We hope that through our public bookcase, families who would not otherwise have a lot of money to spend on books could also obtain a sufficient quantity of books to peruse. The library box is meant to be a sustainable experience, so please feel free to take out any books that you might be interested in, and also to contribute your own books as you finish reading them. Please do, however, work to ensure that your books are fair to good quality and appropriate. Thank you!