We first met Kevin in 2016 when we visited his home in San Diego. He had just started his Look Back Library project, organizing thousands of old skateboard magazines with a goal to build publicly accessible skate mag libraries around the globe.
Now, Kevin has taken his project on the road, driving around to skate shops, gathering mag donations at each stop, and building free libraries across the U.S. (as well as in a few other countries). To date he’s built 80 different libraries.
Kevin’s project is half green initiative — giving second lives to old magazines that might otherwise end up in a landfill — and half utter dedication to skate history. And to get it done, he more or less lives out of his trusty blue van for most of the year, sleeping on a bed above crates of more Skateboarders, Thrashers, and indie mags than we’ve ever seen.
We caught up with Kevin at the halfway point of a six-month long trek across the U.S., when he was setting up a library at KCDC skate shop in Brooklyn. We were curious what it was like to live in that van with only mags to keep him company, so he gave us a tour and told us about life on the road.
If you want to meet Kevin along his journeys, check his calendar to see if he’s coming to your local for a drop-off/build.
He’s always accepting donations, so if you have any mags buried in your mom’s basement you can bug him to coordinate a pick-up and keep the libraries coming.
The Shop
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July 9, 2019 8:29 pm
Kevin is a such cool guy! Great Article Jenkem!
July 9, 2019 9:47 pm
Yess!
July 9, 2019 9:55 pm
Seems like a nice guy. I wonder what the women in his life did that drove him to this
July 10, 2019 2:59 am
This is rad! I have all the Thrashers and Transworlds from 91 to 2001. I look at them every couple years and relive some great times. They bring me back to certain days and times of my life by jogging my memory through as and articles.They are prized possessions I’m never parting with. Much respect for Kevin. Great idea and dedication
July 12, 2019 12:32 pm
Great job preserving the history Kevin!