No deposit, no fee and no target audience, that is the special operating rule of D Free Book, a community library in Hanoi. More than just a free reading space, this place is spreading reading culture every day and sowing the seeds of kindness with trust among young people.
Receiving books and leaving kindness is the only "procedure" in this space. Founded in 2017 by Hoang Quy Binh - a former student of Hanoi University of Science and Technology, D Free Book was initially just a small corner of a rented room with only 300 personal books. With the desire to share knowledge, the student of that year decided to open his room so that young people could access good books without any expense.
With the motto "Books lying still are dead books" and striving to revive reading culture in modern life, the project's founders have constantly called for community participation to enrich bookshelves.
After a long journey of diligently sowing seeds, the project has now reached out with two spacious facilities in the Capital, owning a fortune of more than 10,000 diverse books from literature, history to life skills. This diversity has turned D Free Book into a familiar "information charging station". This place not only retains book lovers, but is also a quiet place to study and nurture reading habits for many generations.
To maintain a completely free open space throughout the week, D Free Book is operated by a team of volunteers with enthusiastic hearts. They work unpaid, diligently every day to receive invaluable values for the community.
The job of each shift of collaborators like Bui Thanh Thao (Hanoi) is to clean up, arrange the space neatly and support readers to borrow and return books on the management system.
According to regulations, each reader is allowed to borrow a maximum of 3 books (or 6 comic books) with a term of up to 35 days. The most special point of this process is that there is absolutely no binding on papers or deposits.
Friend Thanh Thao proudly said: "We lend books entirely with faith. The volunteer team here always believes that those who want to find books and desire to explore knowledge, deep down they are all benevolent people. Therefore, we are always willing to give knowledge, welcome and place complete trust in readers.
Coming to D Free Book on a weekend when the school library was closed, Tran Thi Thanh Thuy (a student in Hanoi) said she was extremely surprised by the scale and quietness of this special bookstore.
“I learned about the library online and decided to visit to find a place to study. The quiet space and the diverse number of books here make me very excited. The library has many useful books that I had never known before. Now, on weekend afternoons, I often come to the library to focus on studying and reading books for entertainment” - Thanh Thuy shared.
Not only is it a learning space, for many people, D Free Book is the origin of positive changes in life. Attached to the library for the past 6 years, Luong Thi Thu Van (Hanoi) confided that the initial fate brought her here was thanks to free guitar classes organized by the library.
Gradually, when I became exposed to this space, I became curious to borrow a few books to read and started to become attached to reading culture. The library has really brought me a vast treasure of knowledge. Reading books from then on has not only stopped at hobbies, but also has a positive impact on awareness, helping me cultivate knowledge and change my life a lot," Van confided.
Amidst the bustling pace of life in the Capital, D Free Book is like a peaceful low note. There, knowledge is not hindered by material things, and reading culture is awakened by sharing itself. Many years of operation, this "3 no" library has proven a simple thing that faith and kindness are always present, starting from the pages of books being handed over.
