Mollie's Bookclub — alyssa smith

I. Mollie’s Book Club App

Back in my sophomore year of college, we were tasked with creating an app to commemorate and bring more awareness to important parts of Black history in Raleigh. My team chose to create an app that would shine a light on the Richard B. Harrison Library, which at one point stood in downtown Raleigh as the only library for Black people in the city.

This app served as a way to help people not only learn the history of the library, but also about the importance of the owner, Mollie Huston Lee. Small excerpts from books included in Lee’s personal collections would be pushed daily, allowing people to read or listen to them, annotate, and receive achievements for daily readings. Events held at the Richard B. Harrison Library would also be pushed, and attendance could be tracked on the app, allowing for achievements for going to a certain amount of events in a month.

Collaborators
Harrison Kratzer
Isabelle Wolf

Design Category
User Research
User Interface Design

360 Images of Each Historic Location of the Richard B. Harrison Library

App Clickthrough

Mollie’s Book Club App Flow Map + Wireframes

II. Richard B. Harrison Library/Mollie Huston Lee Monument

In the last studio of my college career, we were tasked with creating a monument that would go somewhere in Raleigh, and tell the narrative of whatever historical person, place or thing that it’s about. I thought about the Richard B. Harrison Library and Mollie Huston Lee and figured that it kind of feels like a lost opportunity to highlight how important their contributions to the Black community of Raleigh and the lasting impacts this had on the city.

I decided that it should be placed in the original location of the library, which has almost been completely paved over for the bus station. In the grass patch that sits there, there would be an oak tree trunk that’s hollowed out and filled with copies of important documents from the library, including a copy of the only public Green Book in North Carolina.

There would also be two kiosk screens that allow you to select which section of the monument you would like to hear more about, which allows you to learn more about the significance of the library and its’ founder.

Design Category
Monument Design
Spatial Design
Design Research

Location Analysis Photos

Planning Sketches

Original Project Slides

Revised Monument Plan