Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, an Unlikely Sanctuary of Books

By Nicola Clark
Published, New York Times: September 15, 2010

Peter Rasenberg could not remember the last time he had read a book for pleasure. So it was with some bemusement that the Canadian schoolteacher found himself in an oversized armchair, engrossed in a collection of short stories pulled from the shelf of the library he found here, tucked among the boutiques between passport control and the check-in gate for his flight to Montreal.

Left - The library at Schirpol Airport has 1,200 books in more than two dozen languages.

“I wouldn’t normally have picked up material like this,” he said, caressing a slim anthology of 20th-century Dutch fiction titled “In Praise of Navigation.” But Mr. Rasenberg, 51, whose Dutch parents emigrated to Ontario after World War II, said the book had stirred an interest in his lowland roots. En route from a two-week visit to Tanzania, Mr. Rasenberg said he had never visited the Netherlands. His four-hour layover at Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam was, for now, the closest he was going to get.

Mr. Rasenberg’s serendipitous discovery of Schiphol’s new Airport Library is precisely the experience that Dick van Tol, the project’s coordinator, said he hoped to engender. Opened with little fanfare over the summer, the library — the first ever at a major international airport — has 1,200 books in more than two dozen languages, all by Dutch authors or on subjects relating to the country’s history and culture.

Great stuff. Read the full piece at NYT.