Little Free Library
littlefreelibrary.org111 points by TigerUniversity 10 hours ago
111 points by TigerUniversity 10 hours ago
I build these and have one at my house.
Its been interesting.
Had some teenagers try to blow it up with fireworks.
Have to constantly remove proselytizing, mostly christian, pamphlets from it.
Had to buy a stamp https://littlefreelibrary.myshopify.com/products/self-inking... so drug addicts don't clear it out sell the books to buy smack.
Other than hat its been mostly self sustaining.
I had my handyman build one of these in front of our house. Also, I make a hobby of biking around to circulate books between different little free libraries in my extended neighborhood. I've found some amazing books over the years, things that were very different from my typical prior experience of books. I like this aspect, that it can be eye opening. Each little free library has it's own style of books. Some are better at handling magazines. Some see a lot of book movement, some much less. These factors influence how I move books around from one to another.
Suggestions on building a little free library: 1) By far the number one priority: Waterproof. If it's not waterproof, in my opinion you're actually doing a disservice to the community, rather than a service. And have an angled roof for proper drainage. 2) Don't make it too deep. Definitely not more than 18 inches. Probably 15 inches is a good depth. 3) If you can, make two levels: One level for tall books, another level for short books. 4) Don't make it too tiny, because then it's hard to get books in and out of. 5) A good solid stand so it doesn't fall over. 6) A good latch that will resist wind. Magnetic is good. I also like to have a magnet plus a hook that can be used for backup. Also with time it's nice to have the second option in case the shape changes a little and the magnet doesn't work. 7) You might try making a mockup out of cardboard so you can see the physical size and get a sense of how many books will fit. 8) Not a building tip, but: Try to arrange the books to look nice. If you have few books you can face some of them to attract attention.
These started in a tiny Wisconsin town called Hudson, where I grew up. The only time we’d ever be front page on HN :)
It's fun to be on vacation and go visit one of these. They're usually not in tourist areas and are likely to be in well established neighborhoods that a a different vibe than home. Also fun to read and come home with some random book that anchors you to that trip.
yeah! I've done some geocaching (or even just walking around exploring) while on my travels, and have very often encountered these "leave one, take one" type of free libraries along the way. It's really interesting to find different types of books depending on the area - the small town on an island of course has all these books on marine travel, sailing, that sort of stuff, for example. Nice way to get a little extra idea of the area and its culture, sometimes.
I've known Rick since 2001 and was around when he & Todd kicked this off. We've both since moved and it's been a pleasure watching this take off (inter)nationally. In parens b/c I can only verify the "national" part, personally. :) I look for them whenever I visit new places
We got at least one of these in my home town in central Italy, which is less than 50k people.
I don't think it works particularly well, but then neither does the actual public library, tho I basically grew up in it.
I've seen several book boxes in Brisbane, Australia, but neither one that I know the location of has been registered as a little free library.
Hello fellow Brisbanite! Australia has it's own version of this directory - see if you can find it here:
This is very cool, they are a common sight in some cities in Germany and I always love checking through them. I have to admit I expected some OSS library when I clicked the link, I need to touch grass more.
There are several in my neighborhood, and I enjoy patronizing them. The only difficulty is the same books sit in them for months at a time. What might work is having a backing store of books, and rotate them through the library once a month or so.
Just this morning I added several copies of books 1,2 & 3 of the Wheel Of Time series to a random Little Free Library because I had so much fun reading them and I hoped others would as well.
Hoping this continues.
These are a great way to spread something you appreciate with the world. I once bought a stack of 30 or so well-used Calvin and Hobbes books and would regularly seed a few every now and then.
I find these to be cute, romantic almost. But I have never found anything worth borrowing. I wonder what is the real impact in terms of additional books read. I do love the concept of spreading knowledge in the neighborhood. I'd be curious about other similar approaches.
I've found them to be little microcosms of the area where they are: around me, those in wealthy neighborhoods tend to have biopics and non-fiction. Maybe more business or finance focused. Those in my neighborhood (tons of young families) have more casual reading and certainly a lot of fiction.
So that's all to say sorry, your hood is full of boring people. Try finding one in a different area.
We have a makeshift library like this in my apartment complex, and our municipality have one in our town. It’s cool stuff!
We have probably 30 of these within 10 miles and it's great. Perfect excuse to go for a walk, get a book, read it, and then return it to one of the others.
I love the idea but whenever I look in these it’s always the weirdest books and never anything I’ve heard of
I guess that is expected though as the unwanted ones build up over time
I feel like they are often unwanted discards... but we have one and we try to put interesting books in there. Recently gave away my entire Harry Potter series.
Sorry. I'm the weird niche author who puts a copy of his books in these whenever I come across a new one. Author's copies are so bloody cheap and little free libraries are full of weird stuff already, it feels more likely someone looking for books in one will appreciate mine.
Why would you want something you'd already heard of? That's hardly a discovery you could get such a book at the public library.
The ones in my neighborhood are full of religious evangelism titles or bad self-help books.
I cannot and will not advocate the burning of books, but I did get a 13 volume collection of Ann Coulter books... And they did burn well. 415F.
Consider stepping out of your comfort zone.
A great project for any student taking wood shop (our daughter built our LFL last semester).
i build lil free libraries and bird houses to get rid of my scrap wood. it's a fun limitation on the project that often makes ya think outside the box, so to speak.
Most of the ones around here are pretty obviously built from the same plan, but the ones that are kit-bashed from random materials are always the most interesting.
In Australia it's 'Street Library'
Do they have other names in different countries?
in NA we have to call them "free libraries" because the concept of not having to pay for something is so rare, it has to be clearly indicated upfront! (joking lol, mostly!!)
I think being free is implied in being a library
Some libraries require membership. Also some people have private libraries. Universities often have libraries which, at least, don’t offer all of their services to the general public.
I have been dropping my puzzle books [1] into many of these in my area. It is encouraging to see they are almost always gone when I return.
We have one at the local park nearby. A neighbor also has one in her front yard. It's a really neat concept!
There are about a half dozen around my neighborhood. My daughter and I constantly move books in and out of them to keep them fresh on our walks.
Sometimes they’re great; but, oftentimes I find them to be utterly and completely devoid of anything interesting or different. Almost every single one has some sort of religious spam in it.
I find that they're almost always a perfect cross-section of the local thrift store's books - including the absolutely inordinate number of cookbooks.
They’re either what folks don’t have accepted at Half Priced Books or people read absolute shit.
If the latter, it’s no wonder folks don’t read as much as they once did.
I’m convinced people pick these over to resell the books in some cities.
I’m sure that happens but it may still be a net benefit. The original owner gets rid of a book they don’t need and don’t need money for, somebody who needs money takes the book and sells it, and somebody who wants the book buys it.
But some do seem to just have high turnover. When I moved away from a place in New Orleans I probably took about 100 books to one of these over the course of a month. Most of the time I’d come back a couple days later and find all the books I dropped gone—and entirely different (and not obviously inferior or cheaper) books in the library.
Are these not hell on the books, being outside and all? It's generally pretty high humidity where I live, but I still see these. I'd half expect all the books in them to be moldy.
They’re usually reasonably rainproof.
Paper can survive in humidity for a few weeks. Think of all the antique stores in old buildings that almost certainly don’t run AC all night in hot and humid environments, and how many books survive from the era before air conditioning.
My wife loves these, and tries to donate a book to them when she can.
There are people who are angry at Little Free Libraries because they have somehow convinced themselves that they are a plot to drive regular public libraries out of business. Absolute madness.
that's wild because public libraries aren't in business to begin with. they're a public good, they exist to give the public something, not to extract profit from them.
Public libraries are funded and supported by the public though. They need attention, and if you read the other comments on this post it's almost like most of these people don't even realise that public libraries exist.
It's astounding to me that there isn't a cheap mass-produced e-ink device meant for kids to fill the need of paper books yet. We got mandated laptops in the hands of schoolchildren before this!
Color is a problem, isn't it? Also, they have software and as soon as there's software, there's an explosion of over-complication that raises the minimum age limit for being able to use them.
This is a bit of a rant but I have a lamp/flashlight that my 4yo can't use because it's too complicated. It has 3 buttons which control 2 separate lights built into the same device. You can spend all day pressing buttons and making it change color or brightness or turn the flashlight part on and off but if you want to turn all the lights off, you have to know the secret button code. Also, one of the buttons is disguised as a USB port cover which looks the same as the other (!) USB port cover that isn't a button.
Is it? Kids in India learn from black-and-white books in school all the same as colored ones.
I think we used to have this UX problem sorted in the pre-smartphone days. Remember the classic Kindle with tactile keys? It's just a matter of design.
I think this is very cool and a brilliant idea, there are a few of these in my area where I have borrowed and contributed books too.