National Library Week; Little Free Libraries, Eugene, Oregon

Welcome to National Library Week, April 7-13, 2019. As always, I celebrate it.

Libraries are critically important institutions, whether in large cities, small towns or remote rural areas. Libraries not only provide access to information, but are often the focus of a town or area’s commitment to improving the lives of citizens.

Library Week recognizes the importance of free, public institutions and the people who work in them, providing a wide variety of resources and services: books, reference materials, periodicals (sometimes archived for many years), research material like genealogy or local history, innumerable online resources and — especially — professionally qualified staff.

Libraries aren’t just buildings, although I do enjoy visiting the physical plants, whether mammoth establishments, like the Los Angeles Central Library …

Or small ones, like Ferndale, California.

But I’ll start this week at even smaller scale: a minuscule, grassroots example of making books available to all. They’re numerous, and located all over the place. I encountered more than a dozen of them alone during a recent visit to Eugene, Oregon, like this one.

That’s a “Little Free Library.” You might find one almost anywhere, typically in a residential neighborhood, often one where people walk, instead of just driving.

You may be familiar with the idea. You can “deposit” books in a Little Free Library for others to take, or take a book that appeals to you. Share and share alike.

Like library buildings, themselves, Little Free Library boxes can be plain or elaborately styled (click on the small images in this post to view full size).

Some of my favorites are ones constructed to mimic the house where the owners reside.

I favor the idea of the Little Free Library. It’s an excellent way to share books one values but won’t read again. Rather than let it collect dust on a shelf, it becomes available to a passing browser, yielding discoveries to be made along the lines of, “I always meant to read that ….”

You’ll see official Little Free Library organization plaques on some of the boxes in this post, not all. To look for ones registered in your area, or sign up to host your own, you can find the ones officially registered at the littlefreelibrary.org website. Although officially registering provides some additional visibility, there’s nothing to prevent you from doing the same thing independently: It’s still a worthwhile idea.

I spoke to one “proprietor” of a Little Free Library. He told me that in three years, he’s never had any vandalism problems. Occasionally, he said, he weeds out advertising, promotional catalogs, etc., to limit the contents to books, not commerce.

Eugene’s a university town, and that might account for some of the idea’s popularity there, but The University of Oregon doesn’t dominate the city. Everyone likes books — not just teachers and students — and the world is full of curious readers. You’ll find Little Free Libraries in non-academic towns too.

The styles of the boxes vary by taste, and their contents depend on the whims and chances of “depositors.” There’s an egalitarian, free-form and ever-changing variety of books on offer.

Obviously, Little Free Libraries are no substitute for professionally staffed- and equipped public libraries with their well-curated holdings, Internet service and expert assistance. But, heck: They’re fun! Yes, Eugene has a large public library downtown, as well as two branches. But the town’s embrace of Little Free Libraries proves there’s a place for grass-roots book sharing, too.

Do you maintain a Little Free Library, or use one regularly? Please leave a comment. As the week progresses, I’ll look at some more traditional library establishments. Don’t forget to thank a librarian … even if it’s your neighbor — in example below at the edge of a park in the SUN district of Eugene: South University. Happy reading.

Addendum: Little Miss Traveller at Love Travelling observed in a comment that some iconic red telephone boxes in the UK have been repurposed to be miniature book repositories. An excellent idea. Blogger Nothingintherulebook wrote about them, with photos at this link.

© Brad Nixon 2019. Two photos © M. Vincent 2019. One photo © Willard Nixon 2019, all used by kind permission.