Mystery of the Little Free Library

A couple weeks ago I received this mysterious postcard in the mail with no return address, email or phone.  I drove by one morning before work and didn’t notice any “birdhouse” looking dwelling because I think I was looking for a shed size house since the note said “large”.   Since I love a good mystery I went back again tonight with back-up (husband Neil).

AND…there it was.   Just an adorable little box on a post!  (No, not a shed…I’m a little slow about the obvious lol!)  The LittleFreeLibrary.org is a unique personal community exchange of books where you can “Take a book – Return a Book”.  You don’t have to return the book you took, you are just asked to bring back a book to replace the one you took.   I love this idea, and when I went to the website I found an awesome world map where you can find one of 36000 LittleFreeLibraries worldwide!   I was thinking how fun it would be for a family with kids to venture out over the summer and see how many they can find!   Our LittleFreeLibrary is perfectly situated at 954 Washington Street, so you can stop and grab a book to take to the beach if you like (but don’t forget to bring one back!).

They have titles for all ages…

My favorite part of my visit (other than the amazing smelling Lilac bushes) was that they put a guest book inside for you to sign and make suggestions or comments!

How it all started:

The People Who Started the Movement
In the beginning—2009–Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, built a model of a one room schoolhouse. It was a tribute to his mother; she was a teacher who loved to read. He filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard. His neighbors and friends loved it. He built several more and gave them away. Each one had a sign that said FREE BOOKS. Rick Brooks of UW-Madison saw Bol’s do-it-yourself project while they were discussing potential social enterprises. Together, the two saw opportunities to achieve a variety of goals for the common good. Each brought different skills to the effort. Bol was a creative artisan experienced with innovative enterprise models; Brooks was a youth and community development educator with a background in social marketing. They were inspired by many different ideas:
*Andrew Carnegie’s support of 2,509 free public libraries around the turn of the 19th to 20th century.
*The heroic achievements of Miss Lutie Stearns, a librarian who brought books to nearly 1400 locations in Wisconsin through “traveling little libraries” between 1895 and 1914.
*“Take a book, leave a book” collections in coffee shops and public spaces.
*Neighborhood kiosks, TimeBanking and community gift-sharing networks
*Grassroots empowerment movements in Sri Lanka, India and other countries worldwide.

 

Check out the website LittleFreeLibrary.Org to see the whole story or to start your own LittleFreeLibrary!