How 180 strangers built a library together | Rebecca Toh

**Elise Hu** (0:04)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.
In a city known for its sleek efficiency, what happens when 180 strangers come together to build something wildly impractical? A shared library, nestled in the heartlands, fueled by love of books and community.

**Rebecca Toh** (0:25)
Every shelf in our library is like a little pocket universe. An interesting, almost voyeuristic glimpse into someone's heart and mind.

**Elise Hu** (0:35)
That's photographer and volunteer librarian, Rebecca Toh. In this talk, she shares the gently radical story behind Singapore's community-funded library, where every one of the 180 shelves is rented and curated by a different person, from a five-year-old to a retiree, each one a small world reflecting its owner.
It's entirely volunteer run, open 12 hours a day, and started with a single Instagram post, and hundreds of people who wrote back within a day, who were ready to build it together.

**Rebecca Toh** (1:06)
We do have the power to come together, to build what we think is missing in our lives, in our city, in our world.

**Elise Hu** (1:16)
Rebecca walks us through this special place where time slows down on purpose, where there are no late fees, but people rush to return their books anyway, and where the simple act of building something together turned out to be its own kind of power. That's coming up right after a short break.
And now our TED Talk of the day.

**Rebecca Toh** (1:41)
A few months ago, 180 of us came together to build something in Singapore, a library. In a city where we're lucky enough to already have a world-class, highly innovative, much-beloved public library system, of which I am a happy beneficiary. How is our library different? We are nestled in the heartlands of Singapore, where we sit between a 50-year-old furniture store and an antique shop surrounded by birds and trees and...
quite a few chickens.
So our library is what we call a shed library. There are 180 shelves in our library, each of them rented and maintained by a different person. For 45 Singapore dollars a month, you get to become a bookshelf owner. Being a bookshelf owner is actually really fun, because you get to share your favorite books on your own shelf, you get to decorate your own space, and change up your books every now and then. Every shelf in our library is like a little pocket universe, an interesting, almost voyeuristic glimpse into someone's heart and mind. And if you walk around our library, quite often you end up standing in front of a shelf, thinking to yourself, I think I know this person. Even though strangely, you have never met this person in your entire life.
The other interesting thing about our library is that we are entirely volunteer-run. So a roster of about 40 very kind volunteer librarians take turns to keep our library open six days a week, 12 hours a day.
Some of them are bookshelf owners, they have a shelf in our library. Some of them are people from the community who really want to be part of the project. They are doctors, ex-lawyers, students, mothers, freelancers, retirees. We even have a five-year-old librarian among us. But we all have something in common. We love books, we believe in the power of books, and we enjoy being surrounded by books. So anytime we are open, anyone is welcome to come in, to sit down, to read a book for free, to make a friend or connection, to drink a cup of coffee, randomly brought by someone in the library, and to just let the stress of life melt off their shoulders. So how do we come to build a library like this? So in April this year, I took a break from my work as a photographer, and I went to Japan for a sabbatical where I stumbled upon a small, shared community library with a similar concept. I loved it. I loved it. And there was just something about the space that really enticed me.
Standing in that little library in Japan, even though I couldn't read any of the Japanese books, I could sense a very powerful energy of love and care. And even though I couldn't read any of the Japanese books there, I thought it would be wonderful if we had something like this in Singapore, right? So I decided to turn to social media. So I came back to Singapore, decided to write a simple Instagram post, just outlining my vision of what I thought a small, shared library in Singapore could look like. I thought if no one responded, then I would just forget about the whole thing. But if I could somehow get 50 people on board, I would be happy to give this very impractical, dreamy and idealistic idea a try. Okay, so I quickly finished writing, pressed post, and then I went back to work. By the end of the first day, I had received about 300 direct messages from people who said they were seriously interested in putting money down, to rent a shelf, and to build a library together. I was quite emotional that night because I could really sense people's passion and fire in their messages. Living in Singapore where life is practical and pragmatic, this felt almost like a jailbreak kind of moment. And I think a lot of people were just waiting for the right time and the right chance to do something like this together. I guess I was also really moved by the realization that so many people cared about books. So I took a leap of faith. I found a space to rent on the third day of the Instagram post. I signed the lease on the fourth day.