The Mister and I recently discovered that our town has Little Free libraries! We found one by chance on the way home from the comic book store. It is super cute with bright flowers painted on the sides and filled to the brim with books. If you have never heard of the Little Free Library movement check them out at http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/
We decided to look up and see if there were more around the city. We ended up finding four and made it part of our weekly date night. I dug through my shelves for books to trade at each stop while he plotted everything out using our trusty GPS. Most of the libraries were in neighborhood yards. However, one was located in an office complex! I thought that was a brilliant idea. Hey, even business people need books. It was a super fun night and now I am saving money for a Little Free Library in our yard! Here is our tour with an explaination of each stop. Enjoy!
Stop #1- Center city
This Library is the traditional design that is featured on the website. It is painted bright blue on the sides and had a decent selection for kids and adults.
Here are the contents that we found. I left the book “A room with a view” and just took a few pictures. They also had a little grey tube with a pencil and some paper where you could leave notes.
I really liked the bright blue sides that looked like paneling. Everything looked durable and weatherproof.
Stop #2– Another blue box (I forgot to snap a picture of the sides)
This library had some pretty flowers planted all around the base and was full of books from top to bottom!
This one had a good mix of fantasy, adult fiction, mystery, romance, children’s books and some magazines. I love the burgundy paint on the inside. I think they might need a bigger box!!
I decided to leave little notes at each library. I really want people to know that this is a wonderful thing! Lots of people don’t have access to literature and being able to grab a book to read for free is encouraging.
Stop #3- My favorite little Library!
This one is my favorite. It has two shelves for books, LED lights that use solar energy, a cute notebook for suggestions, decorations on the windows and pretty flowers at the base. This is the first library we spotted and it is what motivated our date. I really like the design.
This one is really organized well! A librarians dream. I like the inside colors and the suggestion notebook. It looks like the owners answer each message that is left. They had a decent mix of adult, children’s and teen fiction. None of the others had YA books so this was a welcome change.
I love the outside! The cheerful flowers and sun makes it really welcoming and eye catching. You could see it as you drove by.
Stop # 4- The Mister’s favorite library. Books for Business people!
This little library is located in a business park. It has a very classy design and even has shingles!! The mister loved that it was not in a neighborhood. It is located near the mailboxes so everyone can see it.
This has a very Carnegie feel to it!! It also has been really taken care of. There were lots of books for adults along with magazines like Forbes and Time. I think it is one of the prettiest in the city. The design is very classy.
We had lots of fun on our date and were able to unload some books from our shelves. I only ended up taking one book out of all the stops. We mainly just wanted to see what others had created and how accessible they were to the general public. I am happy to report that we found them all very easily and each one had a good mix of things for all kinds of readers.
I cannot wait to order my kit and set one up in our yard! How can I not have a little free library when I am a librarian? We have lots of kids and teens in our neighborhood so ours will be very kid friendly. I thought about adding recipe books, gardening and possibly the newspaper along with the books. The Mister wants it to be two stories and very colorful. Once we get it finished I will be sure to update and post lots of pictures.
Do you have a Little Free Library in your neighborhood?
~VEB
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