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Library Week — Bread Box or Bird House?

Mar 29, 2013
by Caroline Miller
citizen lending libraries, Library Week
4 Comments

There’s a battered blue mail box, shaped like a bread container, that leans precariously on a post on a busy street not far from my home. For a number of years, I never knew its purpose. One day a friend told me it was a citizen’s lending library — a place where folks leave used books for others to enjoy. I thought it was a lovely idea and now, when my snooty second hand bookstore rejects my trade-ins, I leave a good read there. Within a day or two, it always disappears.

 Apparently, these lending library are more common than I realized. Recently, I read an article that listed their number at 7,500. One little bread box library provides free reading in a village where no public library exists. Anyone can set up a lending library and there’s a website that gives advice on how to do it: www.littlefreelibrary.org. The “libraries” come in all shapes and sizes. A bread box is common but bird houses are popular too.

 Setting up a little lending library strikes me as a better way to pass books along than dumping them into a cardboard box and leaving them on a street corner where they will inevitably be ruined by the rain. Books deserve more respect than that.

 Library week will be coming up soon (April 14-20). Setting up a little lending library may be a wonderful way to observe the event.

lending library

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Courtesy of www.littlefreelibraries.org)

 

 

 

 

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4 Comments
  1. MaryBethKelly March 29, 2013 at 11:12 am Reply
    Great idea. I always have some books I have read and need a place to leave them.
    • Caroline Miller March 29, 2013 at 12:41 pm Reply
      Just picked up an oldie but goodie from the citizen's library in my neighborhood. "Plain and Simple," by Sue Bender, a meditation of a womans journey to the Armish quilters. Love quilts but haven't the patience for it. Glad someone does.
  2. Christine Webb August 21, 2013 at 4:41 am Reply
    Thank you so much for sharing this idea, Caroline. Our family is in the process of finishing our lending library, which will be happily posted for all to use, beside our driveway. We visited the site you mentioned in your blog, www.littlefreelibrary.org and found that not only can one order a prebuilt lending library, but it is also possible, for $34.95, to register ones library. In doing so, the library's location will be added to the map of national library boxes. There is also valuable information on this site, sharing a few options for helping others set up and enjoy lending libraries in their part of the world. We are eagerly anticipating sharing this little lending library with our neighbors, and those passing by, and hope that someone might find that unexpected, special gem of a book that will bring them hours of reading pleasure.
    • Caroline Miller August 21, 2013 at 6:13 am Reply
      Thanks for the information Christine. Good to know there is a national register where folks can locate these litle library gems in their neighborhood. I love the box near mine. It has provided me with wonderful hours of free reading and introduced me to authors I might not otherwise have found.

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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