Why the Occupy Wall Street Movement Has Libraries | Peer to Peer Review

Lending without limits
As I write this, I see that the Occupy Wall Street library has over 3500 books cataloged at LibraryThing. It also has policies and procedures, as libraries do. These include how to close the library when it rains (put lids on the boxes and tuck the tarps around them in a manner that won’t aggravate the police) and it has circulation policies, including how to check books out forever: “these books belong to everyone, so we trust everyone to do what they think is most effective with them. If you think you could put a book to good use long-term, by all means keep it. If you think others might benefit from it more after you’ve finished, we strongly encourage returns.” I love that.
These books belong to everyone. There’s enormous trust embodied in that statement, and it’s the kind of trust that at times is betrayed by rules designed around the assumption that people will act selfishly if allowed to govern themselves. As David Carnevale wrote in his article on “organizational trust” in the Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration, “bureaucracy is a monument to mistrust.” Luckily, it’s not the only option: he points out that “governance systems can be crafted that take advantage of people’s best, not their worst, tendencies.”
via Why the Occupy Wall Street Movement Has Libraries | Peer to Peer Review.