Introducing the Mobile Library (sand-animated explainer) | Reading in Ethiopia

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When I got the chance to write a proposal for Berkeley University's Community Service fellowship earlier this year, mom suggested that I make something for the booksellers here. I like it. So, I drafted out the idea and Berkely gave me the fund.

Now the proposal is being turned into a prototype that can hopefully help the young booksellers in Addis Ababa display and sell their books more comfortably and efficiently. Many of these booksellers carry around the books they sell, holding up to fifty books per hand.
Carrying this many books has long-term has repercussions on anyone’s physical health. One of the people mom and I interviewed-Abraham-talked about the back pain and wrist marks he got from years of selling books like that. Sometimes, the large backpack where he kept his extra copies weighed on him so much, he fell backward.
But the more books he could carry on his wrists, the more prepared he would be for any book title that a potential client may ask for. Many young people all over Addis Ababa are making similar choices to maximize their daily sales.
In several streets, it’s a common phenomenon to see people carrying large piles of books on both hands and walking through traffic.
Since the books are on the drivers’ eye level, anyone-albeit with good eyesight-could check out the book spines from a long distance away to see if any of the titles interest them.
So, they could make a purchase decision on the spot. But exposing those books to the sun and dust through a long day of outdoor work means that several of the books’ covers fade away and suffer sun damage.

Some of the booksellers graduate from selling books on the road to building enough of a client base to have a small station where they could sell their books. Abraham was one of the young men who made that transition. But some of the people mom and I had come across are rural migrants who do this work on a seasonal basis: they buy titles when the demand is relatively high and leave Addis Ababa when business is slow.
With these early prototypes, we hope to assist three young men in one of the thriving regions of Addis Ababa make that transition from nimble, mobile booksellers to better-established ones within their area.

The Mobile Library prototype aims to:
Protect the books from the sun, dust, and rain- Help them carry more books than they already do i.e. up to approximately 150 books
Make it easier for the booksellers to move their books around, and make deliveries
Give the booksellers increased visibility as book distributors within the neighborhood and beyond
Help the booksellers become the primary agents of a thriving reading culture within the urban setting in a country where a large percentage of the population is under thirty years old

Design process

To come up with the most appropriate design that can meet the booksellers’ needs, we teamed up with three young men who are currently selling books in Gergi, Addis Ababa. Mom and I spent an evening brainstorming and coming up with sketches with Kalab, Getinet, and Sewagenyeh. In the end, we agreed on a simple vehicle-and-display arrangement.This design underwent several phases over the course of the summer throughout which I made several life-sized mockups and models, consulted with professionals in different fields, and checked the local market for the availability of light, water-resistant materials like plexiglass and various metals.

Final design: Fiberglass on reinforced bicycle rackThe storage structure will be made of two layers of fiberglass that’ll create a thick and light envelope for containing the books. The fiberglass will protect the books from the sun, but the doors will have transparent openings through which passerby can take a peek at the books without finding out the full contents of the shelf. The structure would be accessed from two sides & could hold up to 200 books. The booksellers can carry as much as they can handle per ride, and sell other stationery items with the books.

Earlier this summer, I met several people in Megenagna who managed to open a small outdoor bookstore after years of selling on the streets.
But they had to go through a long, hectic process, in which they went from one government office to another, to obtain permission for occupying a street intersection where they could sell their books. Perhaps designs like this one could make it easier for the next generation of booksellers to achieve something like that and more.

If you want to invest, collaborate or ask questions, you can send me an email at: [email protected], Telegram & Tiktok: @wintaassefa1