IN a bid to bring books to every corner of Johor Baru, Sultan Ismail Library (PSI) has launched a solar-powered bicycle known as book bike to enable members of the public to swap books.
Senior librarian Tengku Tarmizi Tengku Aziz said the bicycle, with a book box attached, arrived at the library in early September and has since appeared at several Johor Baru City Council (MBJB) events.
“There are solar panels on the box to power the LED lights and a power socket.
“Some books in the box were donated by the public to the library.
“The public can take the books for free, but they must donate one book for each one they take,” he told StarMetro when met at PSI.
He said the bike was an extension of the library’s books-on-wheels initiative which aimed to make books more accessible and attract people to the library.
“Previously, we used a bus for our books-on-wheels initiative, but in 2022, we switched to a van as the maintenance cost of the bus was too high.
“Since the library falls under MBJB, we will usually bring the mobile library to council events, including those organised by local councillors.
“Now that we have the book bike, we can use it instead for smaller events,” he said.
Tengku Tarmizi said the library also wanted to expand its books-on-wheels initiative to schools around Johor Baru.
“The reason we have people exchange books instead of borrowing them is that we know many may not be able to make it all the way to the library to return the books.
“There is also no fixed schedule for the mobile library, so people are unable to catch us at the right time to return the books.
“To address this, we plan to collaborate with schools in the area for a fixed rotation, allowing students to borrow and later return the books through the mobile library,” he said.
Meanwhile, Akmal Azfar Abd Mutalib, a self-taught bicycle mechanic who built the book bike, said this was his second bike for a library.
“The first one was for Selangor’s public library. That was where Tengku Tarmizi saw it and requested that I build one for the library here.
“I hope the bicycle will help the library reach out to more people, including in places that may have been hard to reach.”
