Last time I went looking for LFL's, the map data quality was terrible. There's no way to flag a defunct location as defunct, since only the "owner" can edit their own entry. If they don't respond, it's a permanent ghost on the map.
I've taken to mapping them in OSM using amenity=public_bookcase (and amenity=food_sharing for the similar little free pantry). This way anyone can update the entries over the years.
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.
My wife wanted one of these so bad that she fought the HOA on it to install one. It's been better than you describe, but yeah... Pamphlets, stolen books, etc. And we know they were "stolen" because if all the good books disappear at once and never return, you know someone stole them.
I've considered getting a stamp... But just haven't bothered yet. If the thefts start to really bother my wife, I'll get one.
She gets a ton of joy from seeing kids use it. And that's what really matters.
I don't understand the meaning of the word "stolen" in this context.
I've never seen a LFL with explicit rules on who can or cannot take out the books, or what they're allowed to do with the books afterward.
If someone sees "all the good books," are they not allowed to want all the good books? What if they take them and don't get around to reading them, are they stealing them?
I understand that there's a potential tragedy of the commons with a LFL, but if I put some of my books in one, am not going to worry about whether they're being read the "right" way. Mostly I'm happy to have had a place to donate my books, and figure there's a non-zero chance they'll be read again.
Ah man, even my hometown in germany, which I consider to have a big drug problem - somehow manages to have these libaries(usually in old telephone cells) without junkies clearing them out. Apparently things can be worse it seems, what a shame.
Are Scholastic book orders no longer a thing for children?
When my father retired from the service, he moved to the second poorest county in Virginia in terms of tax base, and the library at that time was a carrel of used paperbacks in the courthouse of the old library --- for each Scholastic book order, my teacher would open the box, remove a couple of books for other students, then hand me the box (she would also remove the promotional poster for the classroom, even though it was always my order which qualified for it).
Things got better when I got to high school, since that library was somewhat better stocked (in particular, a cousin of Andre Norton's lived in the county, received books from her, and then donated them to the library, which I will eternally be grateful of).
Fortunately, since then, the county has managed to build and stock an actual library building.
“Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.” ― Anne Herbert
Built one of these [an oversized version] the first year I moved into my house (charter 76305), and it's been a hot spot as children (and adults) walk by it every day.
Stephen King and Patterson books tend to go quickly, as well as science fiction.
Luckily, I've been able to have a good mix of children, teenage, and adult books recycled through.
Would highly recommend having one installed/setup on a well travel sidewalk/park.
Saw one of these at an Airbnb I rented in Bernal Heights for my parents to stay a few years ago. Neat little Mathematics textbook I used to teach my wife a little of this stuff. They're a loud signal of the neighbourhood. This one had some fun textbooks and romance books but in less nice parts of the city the ones I have seen are usually empty. Presumably, they are subject to the universal law I'm familiar with from the India of my childhood that anything that can be converted to money (no matter how lossy the mechanism) will be so converted.
I like the idea and books aren't something I value holding once I've read them so we put some sci-fi in back along with the textbook.
Amusingly, I saw them in the news a few years later under absolutely hilarious circumstances when the WSJ reported[0] that SF was fining some homeowners $1400 for a Little Free Library they'd placed outside their home after a neighbour complained. It seems to have had a happy ending with those people chasing it down till an ordinance was passed[1] permitting these.
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.
and many more countries. They all need a caretaker, or else they degenerate into rubbish.
In France I stumbled upon one during a holiday trip, it was located in an old phone booth. Hmm, I must have a picture somewhere in my photo collection, …
"In France I stumbled upon one during a holiday trip, it was located in an old phone booth"
Those are pretty common in (eastern) germany, they were empty for a while after the telephones went out of service and then before demolishing many got turned into little libaries. I really like the idea and exchanged many books.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!!)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Better wording might be "to replace public libraries as a provider of free reading material in the public consciousness, leading to the reduction of funding and the loss of all the services a real public library provides, including a much wider and better source of books"
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.
Last time I went looking for LFL's, the map data quality was terrible. There's no way to flag a defunct location as defunct, since only the "owner" can edit their own entry. If they don't respond, it's a permanent ghost on the map.
I've taken to mapping them in OSM using amenity=public_bookcase (and amenity=food_sharing for the similar little free pantry). This way anyone can update the entries over the years.
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.
Definitely don't make it too shallow either. People are forever jamming oversize books in ours and damaging the doors/hinges/catch.
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.
My wife wanted one of these so bad that she fought the HOA on it to install one. It's been better than you describe, but yeah... Pamphlets, stolen books, etc. And we know they were "stolen" because if all the good books disappear at once and never return, you know someone stole them.
I've considered getting a stamp... But just haven't bothered yet. If the thefts start to really bother my wife, I'll get one.
She gets a ton of joy from seeing kids use it. And that's what really matters.
I don't understand the meaning of the word "stolen" in this context.
I've never seen a LFL with explicit rules on who can or cannot take out the books, or what they're allowed to do with the books afterward.
If someone sees "all the good books," are they not allowed to want all the good books? What if they take them and don't get around to reading them, are they stealing them?
I understand that there's a potential tragedy of the commons with a LFL, but if I put some of my books in one, am not going to worry about whether they're being read the "right" way. Mostly I'm happy to have had a place to donate my books, and figure there's a non-zero chance they'll be read again.
Drug addicts mess with them in most of the states I have been to, including Oregon, Washington, California, Maryland and New York.
Ah man, even my hometown in germany, which I consider to have a big drug problem - somehow manages to have these libaries(usually in old telephone cells) without junkies clearing them out. Apparently things can be worse it seems, what a shame.
Did the stamp work out?
Ideally, what should the stamp say?
Are Scholastic book orders no longer a thing for children?
When my father retired from the service, he moved to the second poorest county in Virginia in terms of tax base, and the library at that time was a carrel of used paperbacks in the courthouse of the old library --- for each Scholastic book order, my teacher would open the box, remove a couple of books for other students, then hand me the box (she would also remove the promotional poster for the classroom, even though it was always my order which qualified for it).
Things got better when I got to high school, since that library was somewhat better stocked (in particular, a cousin of Andre Norton's lived in the county, received books from her, and then donated them to the library, which I will eternally be grateful of).
Fortunately, since then, the county has managed to build and stock an actual library building.
“Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries.” ― Anne Herbert
Built one of these [an oversized version] the first year I moved into my house (charter 76305), and it's been a hot spot as children (and adults) walk by it every day.
Stephen King and Patterson books tend to go quickly, as well as science fiction.
Luckily, I've been able to have a good mix of children, teenage, and adult books recycled through.
Would highly recommend having one installed/setup on a well travel sidewalk/park.
Saw one of these at an Airbnb I rented in Bernal Heights for my parents to stay a few years ago. Neat little Mathematics textbook I used to teach my wife a little of this stuff. They're a loud signal of the neighbourhood. This one had some fun textbooks and romance books but in less nice parts of the city the ones I have seen are usually empty. Presumably, they are subject to the universal law I'm familiar with from the India of my childhood that anything that can be converted to money (no matter how lossy the mechanism) will be so converted.
I like the idea and books aren't something I value holding once I've read them so we put some sci-fi in back along with the textbook.
Amusingly, I saw them in the news a few years later under absolutely hilarious circumstances when the WSJ reported[0] that SF was fining some homeowners $1400 for a Little Free Library they'd placed outside their home after a neighbour complained. It seems to have had a happy ending with those people chasing it down till an ordinance was passed[1] permitting these.
0: https://www.wsj.com/articles/san-francisco-fights-urban-diso...
1: https://littlefreelibrary.org/2024/02/san-francisco-stewards...
Gosh, and what a cute one too! This is what a community is all about, ghastly to complain about this.
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.
Wikipedia lists them by country, and with pictures, for example
French: [Boîte à livres](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo%C3%AEte_%C3%A0_livres?wprov...)
German: [Öffentlicher Bücherschrank](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96ffentlicher_B%C3%BCchers...)
and many more countries. They all need a caretaker, or else they degenerate into rubbish.
In France I stumbled upon one during a holiday trip, it was located in an old phone booth. Hmm, I must have a picture somewhere in my photo collection, …
"In France I stumbled upon one during a holiday trip, it was located in an old phone booth"
Those are pretty common in (eastern) germany, they were empty for a while after the telephones went out of service and then before demolishing many got turned into little libaries. I really like the idea and exchanged many books.
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:
https://streetlibrary.org.au/brisbane/
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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.
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 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.
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.
What do you do with them? Give them away on Facebook or something?
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.
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.
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.
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Consider stepping out of your comfort zone.
Into the harlequin romance zone or the “Wordperfect 6 for Dummies” zone?
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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.
[1] https://www.kakurokokoro.com/
In Australia it's 'Street Library'
https://streetlibrary.org.au/
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
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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.
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These started in a tiny Wisconsin town called Hudson, where I grew up. The only time we’d ever be front page on HN :)
We have a makeshift library like this in my apartment complex, and our municipality have one in our town. It’s cool stuff!
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.
Somehow it's not a problem, even in Western Washington in the winter.
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.
The margins on used books aren't there to make this worth anyone's time.
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.
My wife loves these, and tries to donate a book to them when she can.
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.
1 reply →
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.
Better wording might be "to replace public libraries as a provider of free reading material in the public consciousness, leading to the reduction of funding and the loss of all the services a real public library provides, including a much wider and better source of books"
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.
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.