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Alan Shutko and Alicia Schnell with their Little Free Library.
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The latest salvo in the DIY revolution is the micro-library, popping up on a front lawn near you. Thousands of Little Free Libraries have been constructed and installed at private residences all over the globe.
If you can find one of these adorable, birdhouse-size structures, you can grab a book or two from within; you're encouraged to either return them or leave a book or two for others in exchange. Any kind of book or recorded medium, as long as it's not the Kama Sutra (unaccompanied kids are part of the deal), is welcome.
Quickly, people have jumped on the bandwagon and erected LFLs everywhere, from Florida to the Yukon Territory to Lithuania, Pakistan, and the Congo. (The first one was established in Wisconsin, which boasts hundreds of LFLs.)
Thus far, we have four of these tiny, self-serve libraries on the front lawns of St. Louisans—in Ballwin, Olivette, University City, and the Central West End.
Inquiring minds wanna know, what’s it like to welcome strangers for an impromptu book exchange at all hours, on your lawn? We caught up with three of the four amateur librarians and asked them pressing questions about the possibility of nesting squirrels, invasive Danielle Steeles, and other serendipitous discoveries.
Librarian: Katherine King
Little Free Library Location: 35 Enfield Rd., Olivette
What is the coolest book (or other item) you've found in your Library? Someone dropped a huge bagful of books on our doorstep—about 30 various titles and age levels.
What sorts of books have you donated to your library? Picture books, young adult, adult fiction/nonfiction, cookbooks, children's nonfiction—everything, you name it.
Has the library affected your immediate neighborhood? We have a lot of children in our neighborhood who drop by to look and see what is in there and a lot of adults that walk in the neighborhood every day who will come and bring a book they have enjoyed to share with our LFL.
Has a bird tried to nest in the library yet? Unfortunately no nesting birds and happy no nesting squirrels.
Describe building the LFL. It was a process that took about a year. It was a community-bonding event—one neighbor supplied some wood, another built it, and friends, family, and our Old Bonhomme Elementary School art teacher helped design and paint it. We had a ribbon-cutting ceremony with about 30 friends, family, and neighbors attending, and Channel 11 came to take some footage for the nightly news report.
What is its capacity, in terms of number of books? We can haphazardly fit about 40 books.
Ever find other media in there? A few books on CD and some vocabulary flash cards.
Did you have to battle your municipality or subdivision association or any sort of group like that for the right to put it up? It did take over a month to work with our subdivision as to the exact placement of it in our yard. Originally, we wanted it on a post near the curb. We came to an agreement and are very pleased with it nestled in our tree.
Have your kids been having fun with the library? My daughters love the LFL. They helped plan, build, decorate, donate books, and borrow new arrivals. Heidi Glaus came by and interviewed us for her “Positively St. Louis” segment.
Librarians: Alicia Schnell and Alan Shutko
LFL Location: 4272 Washington Blvd., St. Louis
What is the oddest item you've found in your library? There was a bound collection of 1950s-era train magazines. My son just loves looking at all the old black-and-white pictures of trains. I put a book out there myself about communicating with your pets from beyond the grave.
What sorts of books have you donated to your library? Our main source is Goodwill. We go on the media-sale days and load up shopping carts. You can fill a shopping cart with a big mound of books for $15. A lot of the children’s books vanish quickly, and we’re OK with that. My husband says someone is putting a lot of romance novels in.
Have you met strangers perusing books on your lawn, and had interesting interactions with them? We’ve only had it since August, and for a very long time—and even still—when we see someone at the library, we all get excited and run to the window. When we moved in, we had a water-main leak, and it took the city a while to get around to us. When they did, the folks who’d come out to check on it saw the library, and they started looking through it. One of the workers took a book. On Halloween, we had the usual folks coming for candy, and a bunch of them took books, too.
Has the library affected your immediate neighborhood? We’re a block north of the Gaslight Square marker. We live in a kind of transitional neighborhood, very mixed economically. A lot of kids are around with not a lot of resources, and maybe not a lot of books.
Describe building the library. We learned about the concept online and thought it was kinda neat, and asked my father to do it. He flew in with the materials, including wood from a neighbor’s old roof and from this elderly lady’s old bed. All recycled.
What is its capacity, in number of books? Ours is huge. It has two shelves that are 2 or 2.5 feet wide, and probably holds 30 to 40 books.
Has anyone left anything unusual inside of it, like a doll, a toy, a sandwich, anything? I did once discover some religious tracts in there. [Not atypical.] Of course we removed them. We’re not trying to put any particular message out there into the community. Folks are looking out for the library. One day, I looked and everything was in nice rows, ordered by height. Somebody had spent some time cleaning it up for us.
Librarians: Warren and Sharon Danziger
Little Free Library Location: 7222 Stanford Ave., University City
Why did you decide to erect a Little Free Library in your yard? My brother-in-law lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and there are four of them within a five-minute walk of his house. It supports reading, and we thought it would fit perfectly with our personalities and our neighborhood’s personality.
What sorts of books have you donated to your library? We salted it with 15 to 20 books we had, and as it filled up, some of our books didn’t seem to be moving, so our neighbors began to put in theirs. There are kids’ books, classics, all kinds of books.
Have you met strangers perusing books on your lawn, and had interesting interactions with them? Yes, and we’ve also not met some strangers. We have two dogs, and they were barking their heads off one day. An HVAC technician had pulled his van over across the street and was taking a photo of the library.
What is the coolest book you’ve found in your library? One of our neighbors put in Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, a bestseller that looked like it had only been read once.
Describe building the library. I bought the kit from the Little Free Library people, and had two neighbors help me put it in because I’m not handy.
What is its capacity, in number of books? 25 to 30.
Has anyone left anything unusual inside of it, like a doll, a toy, a sandwich, anything? There was a stuffed yellow heart that was in there for a while. And our neighbors put plastic flamingos on the lawn next to it when we first opened it, to attract attention, but then they took them back.
Librarian: Shannon Menard
Little Free Library Location: 1029 Treetop Village Dr., Ballwin
We were unable to reach Menard, but there's a nice article about her LFL here.
