Reflection on Hyperlinked Communities

Wash & Learn Pop-Up Library Program in the Bronx 

I am super moved and inspired by the library program covered in this 3:49 minute video. The partnership between Libraries without Borders (BSF), The DreamYard Project, and the LaundryCares Foundation transcends traditional library boundaries to meet the needs of their community. Through this program, the participants build community, connection, cultural capital, and knowledge. 

In the video, one of the speakers mentioned the importance of having students from the community to “go out and figure out what it is that we could offer that would actually be helpful.”

In this way, the “Wash & Learn” program will also give local youth the opportunity to develop skills that are essential for future success — from hard skills like creating a project timeline or securing an MOU, to soft skills like problem-solving, adaptive thinking and interpersonal communication (BSF, 2017).

The reciprocal and intergenerational nature of the Wash & Learn Pop-up Library program stands out to me. The community and their young leaders both gain from the interactions and benefits are exchanged. Gratitude, information, and skill are exchanged, leading to building of community and disruption of inequitable access to information and opportunity. Robin Wall Kimmerer argues for a gift economy based on reciprocity in her latest book, The Serviceberry. In an interview about her book, she shares:

And here we go back to Indigenous science and to Indigenous knowledge because there are wonderful antecedents to our contemporary economic models in Indigenous economies. And for the most part, they are based on circular economies, they’re based on a kind of biomimicry from the natural world. They’re based on reciprocity. The currency of an economy is not money. The currency of those gift economies is gratitude. And there’s trust that when you have more than you need, you will share it with me because we have this currency of reciprocal relationship. That’s how the natural world works (Kimmerer & Tucker, 2025). 

The Wash & Learn Library program disrupts supremacy culture and barriers to information, leading to transformation and hope. The program challenges my previous understanding of libraries as information organizations in physical buildings and their virtual websites. The act of transcending library walls in a way that builds and serves communities in spaces vital and consistently frequented by community members opens my mind to a world of possibilities.

In addition to the internal challenge I encountered, external challenges to this concept also exist. Upon exploration of the pop-up library program and its partnerships’ websites, I was unable to find more information online and did not see new publishings. Why did such an important program to the Morrisania neighborhood cease to exist? Was it unsustainable? What could we learn from the program and apply to future ones to promote its longevity?