By Amanda Levy
11/07/2019
Seven years ago, Miami-native Nathaniel Sandler set out to contribute to his community in a productive and meaningful way. Books had always played a positive role in his life, and yet everywhere he looked libraries were either being closed or neglected. They were no longer the readers’ utopia he once remembered them to be, and the city he loved had soon lost access to books and the public spaces that housed them. Soon after that, Sandler founded Bookleggers Library, a non-profit organization dedicated to permeating books in Miami, FL. Now in 2019, Bookleggers Library has lead a number of different events, projects, and programs, while building a diverse clientele of light-readers and book-fanatics alike.
“I’ve been doing Bookleggers for 7 years as of this summer, and we have received institutional funding from the Knight Foundation, so there will be one full decade of booklegging, assuming any acts of god or strangeness don't derail us from that. The first grant Bookleggers got was 2014, two years after we’d started. I remember the phone call still, I was ecstatic, it was amazing, it was great to be validated. It was great to know that something I had effectively facilitated from my apartment was now going to be able to scale-up, and as we’ve scaled-up these phone calls become bigger and more exciting. The Knight Foundation has been very good to us over the years, I can’t say enough about what they do.”
“When this organization started, part of the need was that book stores were closing, and the libraries were under threat. The phrase I like to use is ‘The War on Libraries’, and libraries are curious because in the famous examples of Alexandria or even Iraq in 2003, libraries burn, they have a curious habit of not surviving. And what we don't really talk about is that the way people mostly destroy libraries is through budget cuts and downsizing, taking away things libraries need. So when we started this, the idea was to have another outlet, and it’s a hybrid model of a bookstore and a library, where you get one for free but then you kind of have to pay, so someone can’t come in and take all of them. If they were all free that would be awkward for us.”
The organization is made up of many facets, but there are two in particular that have garnered much local attention. Bookleggers has been known to host a wide array of events, each one more unique than the last. Each event is organized with a specific theme in mind, while incorporating a collection of hand-selected books in correlation with said theme. Some past examples include Magicleggers, Spyleggers, and Pegleggers. But let's not forget about the Bookleggers’ BookBox program. Much like the Little Free Library, the BookBox program consists of various book filled containers that can be found all over the city.
In terms of recent projects, Sandler and his team at BookLeggers have recently partnered with Marco Mall of Florida Film House in the restoration of the historic Dorsey Library, located in Overtown. Together, in collaboration with Miami-Dade Parks, they will be putting together a collection of Film and Literature centered around Black History. This will include some Miami-specific works, and will be expanding into Haitian/Caribbean literature.
“The Dorsey library was donated to the city by a man named D.A. Dorsey, and it functioned as the second library in the city of Miami that lent to Black Americans, but the first that catered specifically to that community. There was what they called a restricted covenant on the building which means it has to serve as a library. And the building itself went through a pretty gnarly process of dilapidation, in which it was nearly falling apart. I’m sure there were people in the city that would have gladly watched it turn to dust, but there were others that fought for it to be rebuilt and it was.”
“Florida Film House is run by a gentleman named Marco Mall, a truly awesome guy. He does Florida Film House, the Urban Film Festival, and what he is going to be running out of the Dorsey Library is called First Take. Which is an after school program, and sort of youth advocacy program for kids. They teach them the skills to make movies and shoot film and that kind of thing. Now, we’re partnering with him to provide the library aspect of that building. So we will be doing a film and photography library in conjunction with a civil rights and Black American history library, to sort of cater specifically to his program as well as the community itself. We will hopefully have a presence there for as long as they need books.”
This is not the first time Sandler and the Bookleggers team have been involved in a program such as this one. In the past, Bookleggers Library had contributed to a series of book clubs for the Holts Children’s Hospital (located in Jackson Memorial). Upon entering this project, Sandler recommended moving the books from the waiting room onto a set of carts, that way they can be wheeled into the children’s area. There are now six carts, one for each floor, that are used to exchange books among the child-patients and their families. Sandler has described this project as one of the most meaningful programs he has ever been a part of; to change the way sick children read and receive books.
“That was a moment where I realized it’s not about money, it’s about the mark that you make when you do things, and who you help, and how you feel when you wake up in the morning, and what you’re giving back to the community. What I’ve tried to do is give books back.”
There is no arguing that Sandler, and everyone at Bookleggers Library, is extremely dedicated to protecting books and the places that house them. Their beliefs as an organization are put into practice through constant action and local engagement. To see such displays of community organizing and public good, restores hope that is often lost in the city of Miami.
“The Miami-Dade public library system is beautiful and we should always fight to keep it. When they were under threat we were very vocal about this being important to save. They shouldn’t cut the budgets, they shouldn’t cut down on locations, none of it. We were at all the rallies we made signs we gave people materials and got people to come a picket. And the thing about librarians is that they know how the system works and they fight for causes they believe in and when they feel threatened they will figure it out, and that’s what we did.”
“We’ve seen moments where people take a book that they’ve been looking for for decades, and we’ve seen moments where people truly have that ecstatic moment, and that to me is really cool, that to me is more important than any amount of money that I can make, it's a mark instead of money. I've been blessed in the way that this has grown past me. It’s been really satisfying to see that the community sort of wants it and needs it. And it's a service in the sense that if you want to get rid of your books we take them in and find a good home for them, and one of the phrases we’ve sort of adopted is that ‘it's a no kill shelter for books.’ And its kind of a sweet way of thinking about it because we don't destroy the books we find them a new home.”
To support this “no-kill shelter for books” they’re open every Thursday, where you can learn about their library card program and any future events. And if you just so happen to find yourself at the 2019 Miami Book Fair, make sure to stop by the Bookleggers Library booth, where they will be selling books for $5 each.