The Walking Library Collections: the convivial logic of a library made for walking

The Walking Library is a library that carries books by foot. Inaugurated in 2012, it is an ongoing art project created by Dee Heddon and Misha Myers that aims to bring together people, walking, books, and reading. For each edition of The Walking Library a collection of books is gathered, taken on a walk and read with members of the public. While some have involved the creation of temporary collections, more permanent ones were curated for Sideways festival of peripatetic art, Belgium (2012), The Bothy Project (2014), Women Walking (2016) and most recently for Wild City | fiadh-bhaile (2018). [1] Each book included in these editions of the Walking Library was selected on the basis of a personal suggestion made by the publicin response to a variation of the question ‘what book would you take for a walk?’ The question was refined and customised each time we asked it, ensuring a particular point of focus for the walk and stimulating a specific interaction between the group of people, books, and environment walked with and in. On the walks, participants were invited to choose a book from the library that they wanted to carry and read from at specific locations, which they also selected along the route. For example, on a walk with Walking Library for Women Walking, while we strolled beside the river Thames, we read from Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us. This in situ reading prompted in turn a discussion about where the sea started and ended and how far the sea was from where we stood.