From exchange to interaction

How can I expand upon the tiny library and foster more of an exchange between people?

Add library check-out stickers on the inside of each book
Add stickers to the spine of each book to show they passed through the library
Create a custom stamp that's attached to the library and people can use as passports of sort
Use a changeable date stamp to show exact dates of exchange and give it that library quality
Direct people to a website. Do I make a custom site? Or direct to this thesis blog? Or to littlefreelibrary.org?
Add logos and branding to more components of the project
Add a chalk message board to the side of the library to encourage dialogue
Add bags/boxes for condom or doggie bag distribution

Design for Social Capital

This blog served as a running log of thoughts, terms and experiments as I pursued my MFA thesis in Transdisciplinary Design program from Parsons.

My thesis is about investigating design's role in fostering human capital in fragmented urban neighborhoods. Particularly, I focused on my own neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where people of different backgrounds – race, length of residence, age, religion, lifestyle, etc – live in the same geographic space.

The main hypothesis of this thesis is that if a neighborhood is entrusted with caring for and engaging with artifacts that are left outside at all hours of the day, then an increase in social capital in the neighborhood will follow.

Social capital is defined by Robert Putnam as "connections among individuals - social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them" (2000).