From the time I learned to read, libraries have been a sanctuary. As an adult, I have made my way with words, writing magazine articles and a few books. So, when I recently moved to a small neighborhood in Southwest Portland, Ore., I became fascinated by the number and variety of boxes located throughout the community where people drop off and pick up free books.
There are more than a dozen of these Little Free Libraries. They range from fairly simple wooden boxes, with one or two shelves and a sturdy door with a clear plastic window, all the way to, at the mouth of the neighborhood’s business district, a replica of a red London phone booth in miniature with three layers of bookshelves. And they are as different on the inside as out.
“The Little Free Library really encourages people to make their Little Free Libraries individualistic,” says Karen Anderson, who has hosted a Little Free Library in front of her house in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle for the last six years. “Someone might have a little library full of children’s books; another might be full of mysteries. Our library is full of science fiction.” She says the organization encourages people to make the designs reflective of themselves. “One family in our neighborhood covered the sides of their little free library with homemade tiles. Each member of their family did one, and each tile has its own little story.”
“You’ve got to have really high-quality building,” Anderson says. “In Seattle, you want to be very careful, not just about rain, but about humidity. You want it to have some sort of ventilation; otherwise, you’ve got a closed, humid box.” As anyone living in the Pacific Northwest can attest, that means mold.
Little Free Libraries do more than offer a place for people to recycle reading material; they help foster a sense of community. People are inspired by the simplicity of the idea, and are encouraged by seeing what they give away being taken, and by finding something to read themselves.
“I like what I call ‘giving gifts to the street,’” says Dick Willis, one of my new neighbors who has had a Little Free Library in front of his house for the last five years. “I seeded it with books for about the first year. And then it just took off. I haven’t really supplied much in the way of books for the last four years. People just keep it going.”
Asked what a profusion of Little Free Libraries says about a neighborhood, Anderson says, “The neighborhood values books; the neighborhood values sharing. It is also a way to show that the neighborhood is safe enough to have this sort of thing without worrying that it will get vandalized.”
Willis can only recall one problem incident involving his Little Free Library.
“There was a girl last summer,” Willis recounts, “who showed up with a bag and just emptied the Little Library. But the neighborhood refilled it, so it was self-healing.”