The area he grew up in is rich with history, culture, and pagodas from past centuries, but there were no libraries–until Win Thuya returned home with the ambition of creating one. And with eight hundred books and magazines, in a building rented in the town of New Bagan, the Kuthodaw Library was born.

“We started with two bookshelves, two long tables, and a bench, all of which were donated,” Win Thuya explains, and donations continue to keep the library alive nearly three years after it first opened its doors. 

It is a free library, and is heavily used by the community of New Bagan. The collection has almost 3000 books and periodicals, both in English and in the Myanmar language, with a great demand for reading material written in Myanmar. The library has over 120 users; “Most of them,” says Win Thuya, “are students.”

His dream is to include computer rooms and classes in English conversation and computer basics. Already the library has been able to provide support for a small primary school in a nearby village through donations from travelers and residents.

Information on how to contribute to this library can be found in the forthcoming book, To Myanmar With Love.  For those who are interested in making donations to Luang Prabang’s @My Library, featured in a post last week, go to the Language Project for more information.

It’s easy to forget how much libraries add to our lives, and how much people in other countries yearn for the chance to read books for free.  And it’s easy to help make that chance possible–may we all do what we can.

Living in Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage site,  Carol ensures that not only are books available for the residents of that city– there is also a library that goes far beyond the norm.  @My Library has 1200 books, with 1000 of those checked out every month, and  classes in English and Laos typing, computer skills, art, photography and calligraphy. Five different languages are taught, and there is a music room with guitars, keyboards, synthesizers and a recording studio for Laos and Hmong music. 

There’s a gallery showing the work of the photography students–if a photograph is purchased, 50 percent of the proceeds go to the photographer and the other half to the library, which is a non-profit institution. There is no charge to check out books, and the classes are free.

@MyLibrary is open six days a week, with 150 users a day, most of them between the ages of 14 and 27. It’s run by Carol and five Laos staff members, with the help of an innovative program called Stay Another Day. This enlists the assistance of travelers, enticing them to serve as volunteer language teachers or sharing their skills with other classes.

The library is a place to find books in the Hmong language, as well as in English and Laos. The most popular book?  It’s Malaysian author Billi Lim’s Dare to Fail. And in a culture where perfectionism can hamper effort, Carol Kresge is delighted that in her library, this is a title that is rarely on the shelf.