Dec 4, 2018 5 min read

From afar, they might appear to be birdhouses, mailboxes or dollhouses. They are a couple of feet high and across and sit perched on a pole or a stand. They’re everywhere, but chances are you may not even know they exist. I certainly didn’t. What are they? Little Free Libraries. That’s right, libraries in the day and age of everything digital. They may be small, but they’re mighty and are helping to spread the power and love of reading real, old-fashioned books.

“There’s no card, no late fees,” explains Jesse Johnson, communications manager for Blueprints, which is headquartered in the Plaza Building in downtown Washington. “Honestly, people can take the book and keep if it they want. Ideally, we encourage them to return them because it is a loaning system, but there’s no charge or anything.”

Blueprints (formerly Community Action Southwest) has a Little Free Library outside its doors and also curates and cares for a few dozen LFLs around our region.

“You sponsor it, charter it and then put it on the national map,” explains Johnson. “We have 28 Little Free Libraries that we manage. We get sponsors for those; sometimes they’re businesses.”

Eighty Four Lumber sponsors five of them, including the one at the Plaza Building, which is often stocked with children’s books. That’s ideal, being that four Head Start classrooms and the Washington WIC clinic are inside.

“The books are all donations,” Johnson says. “As long as they are in good condition, we take a lot.”

There’s no shortage of donated books, and Johnson says curating the LFL is often a lot of fun and full of surprises.

“Sometimes we’ll go to swap them out and there will be entirely different books that we didn’t even know about.”

Johnson says their LFL location at Washington Hospital near the bus stop and entrance to the parking garage on Wilson Avenue is one of the most heavily used, since people often borrow books to take while visiting loves ones there. The tiny libraries help to promote literacy and provide proof that adults and kids still love books and reading. “I get so happy when I’m leaving and a family is picking up their kids and they all just rush over to the books there and want to take one with them,” Johnson says.

The Little Free Library was created in 2000 by a Wisconsin man who wanted to honor his mother’s passion for teaching and reading. The idea spread and there are now more than 40,000 Little Free Libraries across the country, exchanging more than 16 million books. The idea is especially important to those who love books at a time when public funding of libraries is increasingly in jeopardy in many communities. Many LFL fans say reading a book on their tablet or electronic reading device just isn’t the same as turning real pages. The fact that the tiny reading hubs are created, curated and maintained by members of the community also adds to their popularity.

From Charleroi to Washington, Peters Township to Meadowcroft Village, Little Free Libraries are springing up all around our region. Take a book or leave a book as you please, donate whatever books you’d like. Write down what you’ve taken or donated on the record inside if you want.

You’ll spot a LFL next to the Washington County Courthouse on the corner of South Main and Cherry Streets. Sponsors and curators report no incidents of vandalism or theft of books. Two locations were temporarily knocked out of commission by a storm and a car accident, but were repaired and are back in the book business once again.

Customers visiting the Washington Area Teachers Federal Credit Union’s branches on Park Avenue in North Franklin Township and at Meadows Landing might want to cash a check or borrow some money. But on their way in or out, they can also check out a book or borrow a novel. The Little Free Library outside the credit union on Park Avenue was the first in Washington County in 2013. Now, there’s also one outside the Meadows Landing branch.

WATFCU started it to give members and people in the community a chance to borrow books and leave books, and it fits with the cooperative philosophy in the credit union industry. Brandi Miller, marketing and sales coordinator of WATFCU, says the credit union’s members help to fill the LFL.

“I’ve been here since 2015, and I think I only had to fill it once.”

Miller lives in Bentleyville and knows of at least two LFLs in her community. “Our members love it,” she says. “It’s kind of a little bit of everything. We had a bunch of children’s books in there, and there were a bunch of mysteries in there the other day.”

It’s not uncommon for someone to show up with an armful of books looking to donate to the LFL. “Every generation donates, and there are often current titles and even brand-new books,” Miller says. Children’s books are very popular at the credit union locations, which were built by an employee’s spouse.

“We check it every so often to make sure everything is appropriate,” says Miller. “It makes us feel good to have it out there.”

Where can you locate a Little Free Library near you? Find out by visiting littlefreelibrary.org.