503

Arte Útil archive nr:

503

Initiator:

Bonnie Ora Sherk

Location:

US

Category:

urban-development, environment, social

Users:

Bonnie Ora Sherk & Life Frames, Inc., (LFI), non-profit corporation, she founded and directs, is sponsor of A Living Library in diverse locales, with local residents and organizations, schools and students (PreK-18), government agencies, businesses and corporations, private foundations, others

Maintained by:

Life Frames, Inc., local staff with students and volunteers from each Branch Living Library & Think Park in diverse communities – locally and globally

Certification:

implemented

Duration:

1981 - ongoing

Bonnie Ora Sherk
-
A Living Library

Description:

A Living Library (ALL) transforms public open spaces that have fallen into disuse or dilapidation into ecological wonderlands and landscapes the local community can learn in and from. Each site contains a themed, content-rich landscape, integrated with community programs and hands-on learning that establishes the sites as vital, life-long learning magnets for the whole community. Additionally contributing to each community’s development economically and culturally by improving public areas and creating these green, ecological areas as accessible community resources.

Goals:

The mission is to develop site and culturally-sensitive, place-based, ecological designs for community transformation with integrated learning programs locally and globally - with extensive community involvement, that incorporates resources of the areas human, ecological, economic, historic, technological, and aesthetic, seen through the lens of time: past, present, future. In each unique Branch Living Library & Think Park, students and caring adults focus on ecology, gardening, watersheds, literacy, multi-arts, technology, health, nutrition, youth leadership, and civic responsibility, amongst other subjects. A Goal is to link multiple Branches through sculptural, Green-Powered Digital Gateways, so we can share experience, and learn from different cultures and ecologies: near and far.

Beneficial Outcomes:

A.L.L. provides a powerful systemic framework, series of methodologies and strategies for transforming barren, under-used, or damaged public places into thriving, ecological, sustainable, and interactive, content-rich, learning landscapes. These resulting Green Centers for Community become lush environments where people of all ages learn about natural systems, integrated phenomena and subjects, by participating in research, planning, design, implementation, use, maintenance, management, and communications. With an established and growing, interconnected, international network of unique Branch Living Library & Think Parks - locally and globally - a meta-structure of diversity and commonalities is emerging, leading us towards a greater and more peaceful understanding of our planet and its inhabitants. A Living Library is Cultivating the Human & Ecological Garden.

Images: