"Biblioburro is a guy who comes on a donkey, he brings books."

November 8, 2009 10:04 PM

Biblioburro is a library that schoolteacher Luis Soriano Bohorquez of La Gloria, a small town in northern Colombia, carries around on his donkeys Alfa and Beto. Another video of Biblioburro by Al Jazeera English. Here's some further footage in Spanish. [Biblioburro previously]
posted by Kattullus (12 comments total)

First video via jessamyn's librarian.net blog.
posted by Kattullus at 10:05 PM on November 8, 2009

I once dated the local bookmobile lady, she would drive around town in a van covered in literacy slogans and full of books to give away, going to a different elementary school every day. She even had a bear costume that she was sometimes coerced into wearing. Seeing this makes me glad to know that that model of literacy promotion can be adapted. Sometimes if I was lucky she would come pick me up after work in the bookmobile, I liked to imagine this would impress, or at least bewilder, my co-workers.
posted by idiopath at 10:30 PM on November 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh man! That was great ... those donkeys looked so proud too.
posted by mannequito at 10:39 PM on November 8, 2009

Ah! On second viewing - this is really cheering me up on a dreary Sunday night - I have to give credit to Alfa, the donkey who carries "practically the whole library!".
posted by mannequito at 10:42 PM on November 8, 2009

Nice, thanks Kattallus!
posted by carter at 10:57 PM on November 8, 2009

I think you mean Colombia, not Columbia.

I've decided not to click on the links, so I can keep my daydream of Luis Soriano Bohorquez of La Gloria traveling amidst the syrup spigoted forests of Vermont, Northern Columbia, cresting a leaf covered hill with the clear, winter sunlight at his back to see Señora Jessamyn holding a bundle of books in her skirt for La Biblioburro.
posted by stavrogin at 11:12 PM on November 8, 2009 [3 favorites]

...Wow this is truly wonderful to see. Warms to cockles of my cold, dead, extra-dimensional heart, floating in the dark void of space.

I sort of now want a TV show about Biblioburro, where the burros can secretly talk and change the lives of children everywhere they go. And to have a release of plush Biblioburros, complete with book packs. To raise money for the real thing, of course. Nothing to do with my love of strange plush animals. Not at all.
posted by strixus at 12:20 AM on November 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

I would like to request an episode where Biblioburro bites the Comcast repairman on his face.
posted by electroboy at 6:56 AM on November 9, 2009 [2 favorites]

With libraries increasingly incorporating coffee shops, this guy should join forces with Juan Valdez.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:19 AM on November 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

I would like to state as a fully-functioning human being, of sound mind and fit body, that biblioburro is the finest word in the entire lexicon of our species.

I'm going to have a nice hop, skip and dance now.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 9:51 AM on November 9, 2009

I was hoping this would be a link to a Mexican restaurant that will deliver to my local library. This is way better.
posted by JeffK at 1:00 PM on November 9, 2009

I would like to state as a fully-functioning human being, of sound mind and fit body, that biblioburro is the finest word in the entire lexicon of our species.

I know, right? It really is a lovely word, first of all you have the repeated "b"s b-b---b----. There's no harsh or guttural sounds in it, and it has the lovely "lio" sound which is in my opinion the third loveliest sound in European speech (after the Italian "gl" and the Russian double-"sh"). The word finishes with a great double r, which is another very soothing sound.

Of course it's even better pronounced in the South American Spanish that I find much more mellifluous than Castillian.

Biblioburro. Biblioburro.

Yeah.
posted by atrazine at 4:16 AM on November 10, 2009