I've watched the evolution of a few of these things. My experience is that even if people aren't trying to be jerks then the quality of books inevitably goes down over time as people take the things they find interesting and replace them with things they find less interesting. You might think that since different people find different things interesting that this might work out in the end, but it doesn't seem to.
Add to this the fact that some people are just jerks and will take books without replacing them, plus a bunch of people who see this as an opportunity to promote either their self-published books or their own political opinions, and you get a bookshelf rapidly being denuded of popular books and filled up with political tracts, dated "how to" books and obscure genre novels from the 1970s.
Compare this to, say, an ordinary public library, which allows you to freely borrow any one of many thousands of well-catalogued books as long as you return it in a few weeks.
Todd Bol of Little Free Library gave a talk at TEDxFargo [1] last year. After the event I had the opportunity to chat with him a bit.
This topic of book quality degradation or opinionated materials added. He mentioned that while people do put in weird books or those with an agenda, you do curate your own library. More often than not, people will quit putting in junk after you clear them out a couple times.
A lot of times where there is an unregulated shelf for book trading (in hostels, bnb's, some community type centers) you do end up with low quality discards. Somebody needs to be responsible to weed out junk and add make additional books available.
The nice thing about it is you can curate it to your interests or whatever is relevant to your community. In the talk he mentions a cooking based library with a herb garden that you can also trim for the recipes. He also talks about ones based around children's books and interests.
It is in no way a 'set it and forget it' type of project. Some work in curating the materials is required.
"There is also a one-time payment of $34.95 per Library to receive a Steward’s Packet of support materials and 1 official charter sign and number for your Library."
For that amount you can get 20-30 used books at a library sale to stock your little library.
There's one of these near where I live in Atlanta. I always love seeing new books come in and out. Maybe I should stock it with some more technical topics...
I once lived in an apartment building with a "free stuff pile" near the door. I had to do a double take when I saw a manual for the Miranda programming language. I say go for it.
was downvoted for my previous comment, let me clarify, books are a known vector for bed bugs. libraries are facing this problem all over. a friend of mine worked at the columbia university library and had to go through freezing process on returned books.
all i'm saying is, books cost hardly anything, libraries have ebooks. why expose yourself to this problem?
One thing I like about this concept is that it's based on people creating public space on their private property. They are well maintained, aesthetically pleasing, but also quite eclectic. Since these are typically set up by individuals on residential property, they aren't just token efforts – they aren't a disingenuous attempt to prove the person is community-minded (though I'm sure appearing community minded is a motivation, it's just not a disingenuous motivation ;)
I wish there was more of this. I'd actually like to put a bench in my front yard, facing the sidewalk – unfortunately people would use it to congregate and drink. But then, so it goes – there are other people near me who wouldn't have that problem, because these problems are typically block-by-block. For some reason my yard appears like a perfectly good drinking spot, I'm not sure why, but I am very aware of it.
When benches are put in by the city, the person who makes that decision is not at all aware of these specific issues. They don't live with the result of the infrastructure they create. So we have another public bench near us that causes problems. Or often there are no benches available because they are seen as a nuisance, or the public space is rendered hostile in some fashion to discourage loiterers, which simultaneously discourages all enjoyment. These are the crude choices cities make because the people planning aren't intimately involved with the specific environments they are affecting.
(If I ever do something with the hill in my front yard I think I'd like to install a slide. I think that would be enjoyed but not abused. And if I'm wrong I'll have to figure out myself how to fix it)
A while back, a local non-profit here in Flint, MI held a campaign and got a handful of these put up. It is amazing that, in a city where anything not bolted down is fair game for theft, these Little Free Libraries are (afaik) always stocked, and I have never heard any stories of people finding their LFL empty one morning. It does restore a little faith in humanity.
I expect vandals would have no interest in books as a whole. They wouldn't be vandals otherwise: there is something about the fragility and meaningfulness of books that makes one shudder at the thought of making physical violence to objects.
Alas, one of the LFL's setup near me in Austin lasted about two months, then had the entire structure stolen in the middle of the night. That's been the exception, AFAIK.
It's interesting to see this on HN. I came across one of these when randomly wandering a residential street in Toronto, and was thoroughly intrigued as I looked up the website on my phone. I didn't end up taking any of the books, but it did seem to be pretty well-stocked.
Someone built on in my neighborhood and it stood for about a year before someone lit it on fire. It was rebuilt, hopefully it was just a random act of destruction and it will stick around this time.
I saw something similar when I was Berlin, by the Grunewald S-Bahn station. There is a memorial platform of the deportation of Jews from Berlin and the area around the city called Track 17 (German: Gleis 17) and nearby the station entrance there's a converted phone booth (in bright "happy" colors) with books on the history and surrounding stories.
It seemed quite popular, with a few people sitting on the benches next to it reading (books presumably from the Book Booth)
I got all fired up and now I'm going to set one up. My carpentry skills are zero, so I'm thinking of just taking an Ikea Nornäs, painting it waterproof and adding a plexiglass door and a better roof (I have some spare tiles left from the previous owner that should do the trick).
I've seen these throughout residential neighborhoods in Portland. Most seem to be stocked with romance novels or childrens lit, but my wife recently found a biography of Captain James Cook that she was planning to read.
I drive by one of these every day in Vermont. I thought it was a mailbox at first. I hope these are self sufficient and don't get taken advantage of. It's a great idea.
Add to this the fact that some people are just jerks and will take books without replacing them, plus a bunch of people who see this as an opportunity to promote either their self-published books or their own political opinions, and you get a bookshelf rapidly being denuded of popular books and filled up with political tracts, dated "how to" books and obscure genre novels from the 1970s.
Compare this to, say, an ordinary public library, which allows you to freely borrow any one of many thousands of well-catalogued books as long as you return it in a few weeks.