OFF RADAR. Look what’s taking off at airports around the world

In this day and age of Web check-ins and Wi-Fi on board a flight, tucked away in corners in airports across the globe, one feature of the past is making a quiet and welcome comeback: the library.

Though most airports are opening libraries to enhance flyer experience at airports where they spend hours before boarding their flights, the little-known Redmond Municipal Airport in the US started its Flybrary in November last year more as an experiment. The airport’s director approached the Deschutes Public Library to set up the library at the airport which it did as an experiment as it was toying with the idea of having little library corners at different locations in the community. The public library started Flybrary to see how well the concept would work.

Flybrary, made of plane parts

Much to the public library’s delight, Flybrary, which only has paperbacks that come to the airport as donations, has been such a huge hit that it doesn’t have enough donated books to meet demand. “The books are kept on a ‘leave one, take one’ model,” says Sara Q Thompson, Adult Services Manager, Deschutes Public Library, which manages Flybrary. Interestingly, the bookshelves that hold the paperbacks are made from old airplane parts and kept in a space provided by the airport.

Redmond’s experiment has already been perfected by others. For instance, Munich airport opened a bookshelf in 2013, following it up with a library in 2015. While flyers are encouraged to read and return the books to the library before leaving, the bookshelf follows a “book-crossing concept” which means that passengers are invited to exchange their books with those available on the shelf.

“This way we have a nice rotation of books,” says Corinna Born, Corporate Communications, Director International Media Relations, Munich airport. The library has around 300 books, some of which are also in English.

Helsinki airport too follows a similar concept where passengers can exchange their books with fresh titles from the library for their next flight. The book swap concept was suggested by regular flyers after which the airport did thorough research to improve flyers’ airport experience and implemented a number of things of which the library is the most popular.

Greater variety of books

As the popularity of the concept increases, some airports are also providing a greater variety of books. Like the Airport Library at Schiphol in Amsterdam, which offers a combination of new media and good old paperbacks. It has 500 books in more than 40 languages from English to Vietnamese and from Spanish to Georgian. Elisabeth Wiessner, coordinator of the Airport Library, told BusinessLine , “We have some omissions, we do not have a lot of African languages and also South-East Asia (apart from Indonesian) is under-represented. I have, I think, one book in Hindi.”

The Schiphol Airport Library does not allow passengers to take the books out of the library and instead tells people to leave their books so that more passengers can enjoy them.

The first library at the airport opened in 2011 but shut down in 2014. A revamped library with more attention to digital aspects reopened in 2017. It is run by CPNB, a Dutch foundation that promotes book reading and book buying.

Culture of reading

Closer home, Abu Dhabi airport opened its library in April 2016. Located at the link between Terminal 1 and 3, the library provides a range of multi-lingual books. Besides improving flyers’ airport experience, this library is also part of a nationwide project to create a culture of reading in the country.

Clearly this is a trend that is going to become more popular as more airports start their own libraries. For instance, Dubai Airport is currently looking at providing book corners and access to e-books and has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority to take this forward.

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