Contact: Maria Chiochios, Library Communications
San Mateo County Libraries
(650) 312-5504
SAN MATEO, CA – San Mateo County Libraries are excited to announce the launch of their new Lookmobile, a mobile library designed to activate outdoor spaces and increase hands-on learning opportunities in San Mateo County communities. The Lookmobile offers visitors the opportunity to explore new ways of seeing their surroundings through interactive exhibits, fun experiments, and reflective activities. San Mateo County Libraries’ invites the public to step inside and take a first look at the Lookmobile on Saturday, December 10 at 11 am at the East Palo Alto Library, 2415 University Avenue, East Palo Alto, CA 94303.
The Lookmobile, a custom-built trailer to occupy approximately 3,000 square feet with inquiry learning experiences, highlights San Mateo County’s unique composition, features, and perspectives. This pop-up learning lab on wheels consists of five core interactive experiences. Visitors are encouraged to explore the evocative map exhibits and pin their own map creations on the walls around them, as well as draw their friends and surroundings using the Perspective Windows. Moving from the light into the dark, visitors can enter the darkened room to see a Camera Obscura at work and experience the dream-like light of the Pinhole Camera Wall. Visitors can also play in and shape a pool of fog generated by the Fog Tricycle.
Multi-generational visitors will help to create a living archive of neighborhoods throughout San Mateo County. San Mateo County Libraries value each map’s unique perspective and encourage visitors to express their understanding of their world and their place in it. Library staff will collect, preserve, and display these conceptual maps on the Lookmobile’s walls. Adding these new elements enables the Lookmobile to be an evolving work-in-progress that links County communities together as it travels.
This project has been a collaboration between San Mateo County Libraries and the Exploratorium, opens a new window’s Studio for Public Spaces, opens a new window. The Studio for Public Spaces works in the public realm to create exhibits and environments that encourage play, exploration, creativity, and social connection. San Mateo County Libraries are delighted to share this outdoor space with the public and invite everyone to discover, explore, and interact with this mobile library as it travels to each of their 12 community libraries. Visit smcl.org/lookmobile for a schedule of upcoming locations.
Lookmobile
Map Exhibits & ActivitesExplore the evocative map exhibits and create your own maps to pin on the Lookmobile’s walls.
Perspective WindowDiscover how artistic perspective works with these Perspective Windows, or drawing windows.
Camera ObscuraWitness how the pinhole cameras allow light from an outside scene to pass through and flip the view upside down, known as the Camera Obscura phenomenon.
Pinhole Camera WallObserve how light passes through a lens in this wall of pinhole cameras, or lightproof boxes, that have a small opening in one side.
Fog Tricycle
