DO-IT-YOURSELF LIBRARIES
When the editors at Reader's Digest made a list of the "50 Surprising Reasons We Love America" for their July 2013 cover story, they placed Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi at No. 50, Bill Gates at No. 25, and at No. 11, sandwiched between sliced bread and tumbleweeds, was Little Free Library, a homespun-tribute-turned-international-phenomenon started by Rotary member Todd Bol.
People in 55 countries have installed more than 16,000 Lilliputian lending libraries, run on the premise of "take a book, return a book," since Bol built his first in 2009 in memory of his mother, a teacher who loved to read. Called an "international movement" by the New York Times and a "global sensation" by the Huffington Post, the libraries have garnered coverage from media outlets including Japanese public television and French and Italian fashion magazines.
Participation is simple: Mount a wooden box (many of them look like birdhouses) on a post in front of your home, workplace, or school. Fill it with books. Delight as neighbors stop by to browse your selections or leave books of their own.
Bibliophiles aren't the only ones willing to trade a patch of lawn for a box of books. Bol, of Hudson, Wisconsin, calls Little Free Library "a new canvas for community groups" – such as artists in New York City, who held a competition to design the boxes; inmates at a Wisconsin prison, who are constructing them as part of vocational training and community service; and corporations, which are building them on service days to give back to their communities. Rotary and Rotaract clubs from the United States to Canada, Mauritius to Ghana, are installing the libraries in their areas too.
About three-quarters of the operators build their own libraries; plans are available on the nonprofit's website, www.littlefreelibrary.org. The rest purchase readymade ones for $175 and up, depending on the model. The proceeds fund the staff, website, and educational outreach, as well as the organization's programs to build more libraries for people in need.