BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH CURATION
Importantly, shelf owners were attracted to the sense of community created through sharing one’s books. Reading is not a solo pastime here, and neither are books displayed without thought, such as at void deck libraries which are typically unmanned.
“You don’t really know what the person feels about a book when they put it there. It could have been they just don’t want to read it, or they didn’t really enjoy it. But here, you can see why people put it (there),” said Mertice Ho, one of Kevan’s friends sharing the shelf.
“There are different reading tastes – and you can also see that maybe your reading taste is not as unique as you think it is.”
The 26-year-old also enjoys talking about what she reads with her friends, though ironically not with her co-shelf owners as they have different tastes in books, she admitted. Their shelf is therefore an “eclectic” mix of self-help books, young adult fiction, and even a book on how to survive the zombie apocalypse.