The world's first all-digital library is marking its one-year anniversary this weekend. Officials are calling the global experiment a “success.”
Bexar County got its accreditation for BibioTech in July of last year, months before the physical location was constructed. BiblioTech came at a cost of about $2 million, which paid for the building, computers and technology and the initial investment of $275,000 for 10,000 books.
Since it opened in September of 2013, BiblioTech has grown to serve wounded warriors at Fort Sam Houston, incarcerated mothers participating in the MATCH program at the Bexar County Jail, and jurors at the Bexar County Courthouse. It has registered more than 31,400 patrons, who can go to the library and borrow e-readers and iPads, and children can read together or play educational video games.
Libraries around the world have called on Bibliotech to share their experience in hopes of replicating the model in their own countries. Its special projects coordinator was invited to the Netherlands in March to speak to its national library foundation on the concept of making books more accessible to all populations through technology.
BiblioTech will celebrate the anniversary Saturday with traditional dance by members of the Korean American Cultural Center and the premier screening of the library’s 90-Second Newbery film project. The group chose "A Single Shard" by Linda Sue Park, which is set in 12th Century Korea and tells the story of a young orphan who lives under a bridge outside a potters' village and longs to learn the art of throwing clay.
BiblioTech is open to anyone who lives or pays taxes in Bexar County.
The daylong anniversary celebration is Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013, at BiblioTech , located at 3505 Pleasanton Road.
