Careful attention on display despite temporary setting

The first phase of the Books for Free project in Stratford is over.

Everybody’s adapted well to not having much furniture. When you have to make do with just tables, or in our case the floor, to display books there’s perhaps even greater focus and less decorative distraction for hard-working volunteers and book-searching visitors

Of course even Books for Free centres can benefit from some element of visual merchandising. The centre is in three actions which share the same central aisle which runs from the entrance all the way to the back.

For now the front third has been designed in a minimalist way so as not to overwhelm first time visitors who are still perhaps running the 3 books for free concept through their mind and wondering if it’s really true

The middle section is displayed entirely on the floor and contains all of our non-fiction. We have art, biography, cooking, gardening, health, history, reference, religion, travel, and sport. In other words books full of knowledge that speak for themselves.

Then in the rear we have kids books, classics, plays, and poetry as well as a big collection general fiction some of which occupy the few bookshelves that we had kindly donated to us. Thank you.

We are also very grateful for our sofas, and (so we could eventually give the carpet a necessary spruce) our vacuum cleaner, all of which has been donated since we opened four weeks ago.

Saving used books embraced from the start

Having a poster advertising for volunteers in the window of premises waiting to open for two weeks didn’t compare with having the same poster in the window of an open centre. We had a new volunteer start with us on each of the four days we were open during our first full week – we opened last Tuesday after a trial afternoon open the week before – What’s more it’s expected to repeat this coming week. Note that we will be open every weekday with the exception of this Wednesday.

Healthy Planet Stratford Centre volunteers and visitors mingle among the books during our first week.

We’ve had responses to our online ads and through the Team London website as well as potential volunteers offering to join the team in person at the centre.

Every one of the volunteers is on their own journey – each of us with our different backgrounds, at different stages of life – yet what’s been tremendous is the way everybody without exceptions has so far given their all to the project.

Sorting the fiction has got underway.

In some cases where English isn’t a volunteer’s first language that hasn’t been a barrier too great to conquer. It almost feels like the fact our books are used, or in other words have their own unique past, that there’s a healthy connection which has been a positive factor to highlight from the first month of the project.