A dustbin man in Bogota in Colombia, who never studied further than primary school, has gathered a library of more than 20,000 thrown away books. The collection began 20 years ago, when Jose Alberto Gutierrez fished out a discarded copy of Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina.
哥倫比亞波哥大一名小學之後就沒念書的清潔工，已收藏超過2萬本被扔棄的書籍。這項收集行動始於20年前，當時古鐵雷斯翻出一本被丟掉的托爾斯泰小說「安娜．卡列尼娜」。
He now offers his books to other people as a free community library. "I realised that people were throwing books away in rubbish bins. I started to rescue them," he said. Gutierrez, who has gained the nickname The Lord of the Books, began collecting books that had been dumped in the waste bins in wealthier parts of the city. He would take them out of the rubbish and retrieve them for families in poorer areas.
他現在以免費社區圖書館的形式，將他的藏書提供給其他人。「我意識到人們將書丟到垃圾桶，於是我開始挽救它們」，他說。被稱為「書籍之王」的古鐵雷斯，開始收集被棄置在該市富裕社區垃圾箱裡的書本。他將它們從垃圾中取出，並進行修復，以提供給貧窮地區的家庭。
His collection of chucked away books is now used by families wanting to help their children with their homework, in a free library called the Strength of Words. He is also taking books to remote areas without any access to libraries. He has been providing books for fighters being demobilised in Colombia’s peace process. A fighter from the Farc rebel group contacted him about getting books to help them prepare for jobs when they re-enter civilian life.
現在，他的棄書在一座稱為「文字力量」的免費圖書館裡，被希望幫助子女作家庭作業的家庭運用。他也送書到沒有任何圖書館的偏遠地區。他還提供書籍給在哥國和平進程中的解甲戰士。一名來自叛軍組織「哥倫比亞革命武裝部隊」（Farc）的戰士，為了取得書籍而與他聯絡，希望在他們重返平民生活之際，幫助他們做好就業準備。
Source article: http://iservice.ltn.com.tw/Service/english/english.php?engno=1112417&day=2017-06-21