Little Free Libraries


Yesterday my friends and I visited three new Little Free Libraries yesterday, so I thought maybe a post about them in general is in order.

LFL1 The project was started in Wisconsin in 2011 and many have popped up around the world since then. The idea is to have small, free book exchange boxes all over. A “take a book, leave a book” sort of thing, though no one has yet complained that most of the BookCrossers do much more leaving of books than taking them. It’s great to have weather-protected locations where books will not only be safe but picked up by people who want them.

I was lucky enough to run into the man who started it all at the National Book Festival. He was quite BookCrossing-friendly (he even took over explaining the concept to the gentleman also checking out the LFLs at his table), and it’s great to see a new way of sharing books catch on.

LFLWestminster-01I visited my first Little Free Library in November with my BookCrossing friends, without whom I never would have found it. We were up in Westminster, Maryland, for a meetup at the OBCZ in Birdie’s and took a short field trip over to it.

This one is located outside a pharmacy and I got a kick out of the sign on its side reading “RELAXING WITH A BOOK IS GOOD MEDICINE.” Clever.

For a while, it looked like there were no LFLs in Northern Virginia (and, as of this post, none still show up on the map). But BCinDC members have recently come across a few of them closer to home; we have just started an ongoing list of them on the BCinDC website. Three of my BookCrossing friends and I set out yesterday to visit a few.

The first two were at Centreville Elementary. One resembles a bright red schoolhouse, while the other is plain wood. Both had a nice selection of children’s books in them, as one might expect.

CentrevilleLFLTwo-01 CentrevilleLFLOne-02 CentrevilleLFLTwo-02

We also visited one at a playground in Vienna, which made a point of stressing that this was not a book giveaway (though all we did was give away our books there). It’s also stocked full of children’s books (lots of fun board books, actually, some with arms even).

MeadowLakeParkLFL-01

There’s at least one other one in my area and possibly another one or two coming soon. Definitely something to keep an eye out for and worth visiting!