Feel-Good Fun: The Little Free Library

I am happy to report that one of the first Little Free Libraries in Southern California was installed in Pacific Palisades. You may ask, "What is a Little Free Library?" A Little Free Library is a public book exchange that is completely free form, no rules. Put in a book or take out a book. There's no obligation to return one or put one in. It's totally organic. Here is what NBC Nightly News has to say about the Little Free Library.

Since that TV news report a lovely article in the Los Angeles Times was featured on the front page in June, 2012. Southern California is discovering the magic I knew these little book exchanges would bring our way.

In 2011 I learned about the Little Free Library from my friend Parker Palmer. He started noticing them show up in his town of Madison, Wisconsin and was filled with delight.

As soon as I heard about these book exchanges, I knew I had to see one in Los Angeles. So I began to plant seeds for this idea anywhere I could: friends, organizations, wherever. Finally, to my joy Palisades PRIDE fell in love with the concept, and now one of the first Little Free Libraries stands on Monument Street a block up from Sunset Blvd.

At the time I told Palisades PRIDE about the Little Free Library, I also told a friend in Sherman Oaks. Being handy with tools, he immediately built one and put it in front of his house. His social life has been blossoming since. One neighbor told him, "This is just what our neighborhood needs!" I also told folks about the Little Free Library in Mar Vista and Culver City, and now they are popping up in those communities. In June, 2012 I was invited to a Little Free Library woodworking workshop in Venice.

The beauty of the Little Free Library is you have the option to order one through the nonprofit organization or you are provided free plans online, and you can build your own. If you build your own, you can purchase a sign from the organization with your own unique charter number engraved on it, so that you can be part of the Little Free Library international database. If you are comfortable having the GPS coordinates of the location of your Little Free Library on Google maps, you can register your library and send a photograph with a story about your Little Free Library, and the organization will display your photograph and story online for the world to see.

Interestingly, Little Free Libraries rarely get vandalized. My friend and I suspect it is because they bring out the good in people. Given that, I sense these little libraries may be an excellent crime deterrent for neighborhoods. Barren streets are an invitation to crime, because there are no witnesses. However, these little libraries draw people out of their homes to congregate.

I have many ideas of how these little libraries can benefit a community. They can do wonders for a local economy by the work they can provide carpenters and artists. A percentage of those sales can be donated to Friends of the Library as an ad hoc to their used book sales. Recently, I had a cool idea of some being built with working solar panels on the roof with an LED light bulb inside as a way to both promote the solar power and literacy at the same time. If I told you all the ideas I have, this blog post would never end. It seems this Little Free Library is a gift that just keeps giving.

The Little Free Library is a repository for the books we love and cherish that we wish to share. It is akin to community members sending love letters to one another. Since the public library only accepts used books in very good condition, why not deposit the rest in a Little Free Library?

When I have suggested the Little Free Library to organizations, I often am asked, “What’s the difference between this and our public library?” No matter how many Little Free Libraries show up in a community, they can never compete with the sheer volume of our public library system, and they are not meant to. Rather, by promoting literacy and the physical book, they promote LAPL by offering small samples as a reminder of the treasures sitting on the library shelves. You may be so lucky as to find a new author because of the Little Free Library—which will then prompt you to seek more of that author's works in the vast storehouse of the public library system. Everybody wins.

Recently a woman shared with me that her daughter is often at home without friends. I did not think of it at the time, but after we spoke it occurred to me to suggest they install a Little Free Library in front of their house. It can literally change a life overnight, because it draws people to you and brings happiness. It's a great remedy for our isolating modern world and far better than Facebook, because it brings you outside into the physical providing connections of substance rather than virtual ones.

What is totally unique about the Little Free Library than anything I have ever encountered is it offers the beauty of the community sharing the gift of books with no strings attached. My experience is even when gifts are given there is a sense of strings or obligation of some kind. We feel obligated to like the gift or return the favor to the giver. However, since these gifts are offered anonymously, we can do as we wish with them. We can keep them. We can give them to a friend. We can even donate them to Friends of the Library. Anything goes.

This may be very hard to understand, because our brains have not been wired to this way of selfless giving and receiving; however, as we adjust to this form of gift exchange whole new neural-tracks in our brain may develop—showing up in greater generosity. These book exchanges have the power to potentially make us better people. Rather than Facebook that provides chemical rushes to the brain; the Little Free Library provides chemical rushes to the heart. I call that love.

I was so excited the day I deposited my first book. It was clear to me it had to be Parker Palmer's Healing the Heart of Democracy, a book that fully embraces what the Little Free Library represents. I told him of my intentions, and he kindly sent me a complimentary copy. Days before I did it, I learned about Bookcrossing.com, an online tracking system for books you give away. Like the Little Free Library, you are assigned a unique number for every book you register and affix it to the book and then watch where it travels as others journal about it. It added another feel-good layer to the Little Free Library. I was bubbling over with joy as I affixed the Bookcrossing sticker on Parker's book. Then I went to the little library, deposited it, and wished it well on its travels.

A seedling was planted in Pacific Palisades a year ago, and now there are over a dozen in the city of Los Angeles. I thank Palisades PRIDE for being fertile ground; you have started something beautiful that, little library by little library, is transforming our city into a friendlier place.