Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.12.2011, Blaðsíða 24

24
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2011
Seven years ago I started a library.
The purpose was to sow seeds of
radicalism in the community, to
give people the opportunity to edu-
cate themselves on various issues
that are not taught at school and
are not being covered by the main-
stream media.
I began by setting up a few shelves
in one of the rooms at Tónlistarþróu-
narmiðstöðin (TÞM, “The Centre for
Musical Evolution” at Grandi) with a
couple hundred books from my own
collection. Then I started organising
hardcorepunk and metal shows at The
Centre to raise money to buy more
books, and wrote to Anarchist periodi-
cals and publishers about the project,
asking for book donations.
Friends have also helped out by
bringing their own books and taking
shifts at the library to keep it open. And
when they go travelling I ask them to
bring home radical and provoking titles
second hand or wholesale from under-
ground publishers in copies of eight to
ten. That way I scored copies for the li-
brary and could set up a distribution to
sell the extra books at punk shows.
That’s not to say that it has always
gone smoothly. We struggled to or-
ganise people to man shifts the TÞM
Centre and later at The Peace House.
Then we moved to Kaffi Hljómalind
where radically minded bookworms
helped themselves to reading mate-
rial, but sadly, after two years there,
Hljómalind closed down (because of
greedy capitalist landlord problems)
and the library moved to Höfðatún 12,
with Food Not Bombs and the DIY bike
collective Keðjuverkun as neighbours,
and Borgarahreyfingin (“The Citizen’s
Movement”) offices upstairs. Finally,
that hopeful grassroots centre crum-
bled because of a split within Borga-
rahreyfingin and we had to pack up all
the books once again.
SOWING SEEdS OF RAdICALISM
Now the library has found a steady
home in Reykjavíkurakademían, Hring-
braut 121 on the fourth floor. There are
around a thousand titles that I organ-
ise into roughly five categories; ‘Anar-
chism’ (from theory and propaganda to
anarchist history), ‘Activism’ (various
recipes against disaster), ’Environ-
mentalism’ (from veggie cookbooks to
animal liberation), ‘Philosophy’ (from
French intellectuals to disobedient
Thoreau and from spirituality to anti-
civilization), ‘Left-wing Politics’ (from
Chomsky to Marx to girl power to Pal-
estine issues) and ‘Literature’ (liberat-
ing, underground and thought provok-
ing novels and prose).
The library books are full of fasci-
nating ideas that no other media can or
will put forward. Books keep giving me
answers to my questions and feeding
me new ideas. Books increase the qual-
ity of my life and for that I love them.
That’s why the library keeps growing
and we keep spreading love and anar-
chy.
When people ask if the library
works, I tell them the story about a kid
who walked into the library one day and
asked if I had seen a certain woman. I
told him no, I had not seen her around
and asked him why he was looking for
her. “Well,” said the kid, “I wanted to
give her fish... you see, I work on one
of the tourist boats by the harbour. The
tourists go angling and they always
leave the catch and we used to throw
the fish away, but after I started coming
to the library and reading these books,
I always try to give the leftover fish to
someone.”
A COMMUNITy PROjECT THAT
WORKS
That made me realise that setting up
an Anarchist library as a community
project actually works. Also, we have
not had any real problems with our
self-service system, which is based on
trusting the borrower. If people want to
take out a book, they write their name
and contact information into the “big
book,” with the date and the title of the
book they borrowed, and I email them
when I see that the book is still missing
from the shelves after a few weeks.
Even if all the books were to slowly
disappear, I wouldn't consider this a
failed project. It would mean that all
the ideas within them are somewhere
out among people. The plan was never
to set up an institution, but to spread
ideas and inspiration.
Most bibliophiles have bookstores
that mean a great deal to them,
places where they have spent
hundreds, thousands of hours. For
many of Iceland's bookworms, me
included, that bookstore is bók-
abúð Máls og menningar (bMM for
short) on Laugavegur 18, which has
been in existence for half a cen-
tury (full disclosure, I worked there
three holiday seasons in my late
teens).

There are few business establishments
closer to my heart and yet there was a
two year period when I barely visited.
The store was a decaying hulk, with
a pathetic selection and a lifeless at-
mosphere. That started to change last
spring when the company that ran it for
the past couple of years went bankrupt
and new owners took over. In our last
issue I wrongly asserted that the store
is owned by a bank now, for which I
apologise. In fact, the current owners
are the same people who run the book-
store Iða on Lækjargata. To revive some
of the good feeling that the store had
lost, they hired Kristján Freyr Halldórs-
son to run BMM, who had been part of
the store’s crew from 2000–06.
SELLING bOOKS AFTER THE CRASH
There are eight bookstores in down-
town Reykjavík. Half of these are spe-
cialised, but the general public is served
by Iða, BMM and two branches of the
Penninn-Eymundsson national chain
of bookstores, where Kristján Freyr
once also worked. The corporation that
owned Penninn-Eymundsson went un-
der in the financial collapse. "Of course
it stands to reason," says Kristján Freyr,
"that when everything comes crashing
down, the state, and therefore its bank,
will take over an operation that employs
2–400 people. The reasons for that are
completely understandable."
For a smaller business like BMM, a
competitor that is financially supported
by a bank is a daunting prospect, as
Kristján Freyr explains: "There was
a news story this fall which revealed
that the bank is putting 2–300 mil-
lion ISK into [Penninn-Eymundsson].
That is very unhealthy." He stresses
that his company is not alone in feel-
ing that way: "Furniture makers, who
are in competition with Penninn-Ey-
mundsson when it comes to office fur-
niture, bought a full-page ad the other
day, to protest this situation." He feels
that Penninn-Eymundsson drowns his
bookstore out in the media: "I have to
think twice before I buy an ad in Fré-
ttablaðið [newspaper] because if I
did that today, I would be competing
with 3–4 full page ads from Penninn-
Eymundsson." He thinks that soon the
market for books will be different: "The
sales process will start soon. So change
for the bookselling business is around
the corner."
"CASTING OUT EVIL SPIRITS"
Returning back to his former place of
employment has been odd, but fun. "A
client I remembered from back then
came into the store. He started to ask
me about a few books. With one he
stumped me. I said: 'I apologize, I seem
to be drawing a blank. I just started
working here.' He said: 'Just started?
You have been here some time, no?' I
replied: 'Yes, but that was a while back,
I just started again.' Then he said: 'Now
that you mention it, you have been
showing up to work rather spottily.'"
The store he came back too was a
dim echo of its past self. The happiness
of the staff had plummeted. Kristján felt
that his first task was to reverse that
trend: "I got called a voodoo doctor and
told that my job was casting out evil
spirits. We have been working system-
atically to lift the mood of this place."
"THERE MUST bE A bOOKSTORE"
Before its decline set in, BMM had a
notably extensive selection of books
in languages other than Icelandic, es-
pecially English and the Scandinavian
languages. For the last two years there
has been little on offer beyond a few
bestsellers and business guides. "Since
we took over the store this spring," says
Kristján, "we have added 18 shelf me-
tres of English-language books. We get
about four to five boxes a week." On the
subject of books in other languages,
Kristján admits that they are not a pri-
ority yet but that Scandinavian books
sold quite well and that he feels it is im-
portant to offer a good selection.
Having watched one of the most
important institutions of my youth
shamble along half-dead for two years,
I had begun to despair that it would
ever come back to life. It still has some
way to go, but it is heading in the right
direction. I am not the only person for
whom this is important. On the day that
the previous owners went bankrupt I
ran into my old boss from back when
I worked at BMM. We talked in sombre
tones, as if a close friend had died. But
as we parted, she, a quiet woman in her
seventies, bellowed: "There must be a
bookstore in that house!"
Litterature | Commerce Rad | Lib
Radical Library As A
Community Project
Voodoo Economics
The library in Reykjavíkurakademían (Hringbraut 121) is open weekdays from 10:00
to 16:00. It is a tool for self-education and inspiration. Please use it and enjoy it. An
incomplete list of books can be found at www.andspyrna.org.
Words
Kári Tulinius
Photo
Hvalreki
SIGGI PöNK
GOITALONETOGETHER.WORdPRESS.COM
Reykjavík's zombie bookstore is being brought back to life
“I got called a voodoo
doctor and was told that
my job was to cast out
evil spirits. We have been
working systematically
to lift the mood of the
place.”