Little Free Libraries Gaining Steam

Neighbors, wanting to connect with each other with books, are creating little neighborhood libraries for themselves.

From a piece in the Los Angeles Times...

Using odds and ends of fiberboard and Douglas fir, the retired building contractor fashioned a hutch the size of a dollhouse. He gave it a pitched cedar-shingle roof capped with copper. The door, trimmed in bright red, opens to three shelves filled with books by Joyce Carol Oates, Tony Hillerman, James Michener and others. Below hangs a sign: "Take a book or bring a book or both."

In the half a year that Beggs' Little Free Library has perched on a post in front of his Sherman Oaks home, it has evolved into much more than a book exchange. It has turned strangers into friends and a sometimes impersonal neighborhood into a community. It has become a mini-town square, where people gather to discuss Sherlock Holmes, sustainability and genealogy.

"I met more neighbors in the first three weeks than in the previous 30 years," said Beggs, 76.