They are now stored in a two-meter-high rampart. He says that he is the only one in Latvia who accepts absolutely all unwanted books, thus freeing people from the moral pain of having unnecessary books sitting on their shelves but not wanting to take the unpleasant measure of destroying them – a course of action generally associated with dictators, fanatics and barbarians.
Rolands sorts and enters his newly acquired books into a database for future reference.
"Everything started very simply. We needed to save books. That was a year and a half ago. At the moment, 150,000 books have been saved in a year and a half. It's completely insane! How naive I was a year and a half ago," says Laķis.
Libraries often do not accept old books – indeed many are busy trying to dispose of unwanted old tomes themelves. Book exchange points exist but are often overloaded with heavyweight publications and 'collected works' from the Soviet era which are more or less unreadable these days.
Lakis explains: "On Facebook, a lot of people complain about what they should do with their grandmother's books. At that moment, I address them and say - bring all the books to me. If there are a lot of books, then I will go and get them."
"I would like to claim that I am the only one who takes absolutely everything, and in this way I am the only one who frees a person from the moral pain of disposing of grandmother's books."
On average, about five thousand books come to Rolands in this way every month, he says: "We bring absolutely everything possible. The oldest book is from around 1850, the newest book was published last year still in cellophane packaging."
He also got one of the most stolen books in Latvian libraries: Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, which was published amid controversy in Latvia at the beginning of the nineties. In Rolands' opnion it has value as a recipe for intelligent readers of what NOT to do.
Rolands Lakis saves books voluntarily, devoting about four hours of his free time to this work every day: "I calculated like this, I invest an average of 500 euros per month, because I have to travel, pay for storage, and some other costs."
In the 300-square-meter room, the books are currently stacked two meters high. Roland Lakis has a plan for what to do with all this in the future: "There are 6,200 villages in Latvia. Only every tenth village has a small library. We know what happens to small libraries, they are being liquidated."
His plan is very simple. In each village, the community could maintain a community library on a voluntary basis, and his collection could form the backbone of the stock.
Rolands Lakis is currently performing his book rescue alone. He hopes that more volunteers could join him in the future.
