BORDERLINE BOOKS
free books
free minds
The Kittiwake Trust
Our projects tend to cater for those with no permanent home, those fleeing war, persecution or domestic abuse. Also those who hover on the borderline in one sense or another, people who are imprisoned or displaced and those who are on the fringes of society.
The Kittiwake Trust became a CIO on 26 January 2016
with charity number 1165318.
Our Patrons
writer and speaker Michael Rosen
Borderline Books remains an ever-growing project and one which we invite people to replicate all around the country. In addition we run a Multilingual Library which will reopen in Gateshead shortly after having to leave our original home in Newcastle in early 2021.
The idea for the library grew out of a chance remark by a volunteer, that Borderline Books had more books in more languages than the universities in Newcastle have. From that moment we stopped giving those books away and began to work on building a collection. The library currently contains in excess of 20,000 books in more than 120 languages and dialects.
In October 2020 our library, was awarded the title of Library of Sanctuary and was the first such library in the North East
As far as we are aware, our library is almost unique in the UK. There is a Multilingual Library Scotland, a Multilingual Children's library as part of the Public Library in Sheffield and we know that Coventry is in the process of building a Multilingual Library there. We will be happy to support any and all of these projects in whatever way we can. We have already donated duplicate copies to both existing projects.
Professor David Crystal is patron of the Kittiwake Trust Multilingual Library.