They have an interactive map to find nearby little free libraries near you. You can use their map here.
In Europe we have Buchschränke (Tauschschränke)
There’s a open street map tag: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:amenity%3Dpublic_bookcase
We set one up at the front of our yard years ago and I love having it! I try to keep a good stock of kids, romance, and fantasy in it as that seems to be the name for our neighborhood.
Personally I love seeding them with Victorian smut
We have these around in various places, I don’t see some “nonprofit” taking credit for them.
So it’s an organization/brand? I thought it was just something that some homeowners like to do, not an official thing.
Yes and no. Not everybody knows about this organization and lists the library they made on this map, but most do!
Don’t even have to be a homeowner. A map to find Free Book Shelves is a welcome additon though.
Every time I look into one of these, it’s just shitty self help or business pulp. The good books get stolen and sold on eBay :(
But sometimes I also discover the absolute best trash. For example, without my local little free library, I never would have learned about Sexual Kung Fu which is totally a real thing and not made up by a white guy that visited Asia for a few years that sells self-help coaching now.
Imagine, until that book I had gone my entire life without knowing that penises and vaginas have front gates and back gates.
Also, did you know that if you train hard enough you can have a kidney orgasm? And a lung orgasm?
I have seen a few of those around in my city and even some version of it at the college I attend. I wholeheartedly think these are great, so long as people don’t abuse them. I’ve never seen one being abused here, but I can guarant in some regions it has already been abused.
Meanwhile I’ve never seen one not abused! People love to take the books, but not return them. I know this because I’ve made multiple trips to restock my local little library and every single time I went, nearly every book was gone, every time. I never saw any of the books I added ever again.
I wonder if it’s one shitty person causing all the problems.
Yeah I haven’t kept up with it but for a while there around me, these had a huge problem of people cleaning them out and selling all the decent books in them for some cash. Rinse and repeat every time it was restocked.
I’ve seen this once or twice but barring knowing the goal of the owner wasn’t sure if it’s appropriate to help restock.
As a big example I believe many of these are lgbtq or diversity friendly but that can be controversial. It’s not my business to make a statement in your library: should I donate an lgbtq book? a western? Romantic? Children’s? I have them all and support almost any goal encouraging reading or thinking, i just need to know what it is
I like these things. Had no idea there was an organisation involved.
Fun fact: you can get them in Animal Crossing. You can buy them straight up, or make them — the availability of the crafting recipe, or the item being available in the shop, however, is completely random. And they don’t “do” anything. They’re just a decoration. I like having one on my island near my houses though, or maybe up by the museum, but my current character has neither the recipe nor the actual item. One of those things that, if I get the recipe/item, I’ll definitely put one out.
Thanks for the map, I see the one in my immediate neighborhood is not listed but there are two others within an easy walk!
I’ll have to let them know
I did always wonder what the goals and protocols were. Can I donate to one or respect their choices of content? Am I acting suspicious if I stand there to “browse the stacks” and see if there is anything that interests me?
Can I donate to one or respect their choices of content? Am I acting suspicious if I stand there to “browse the stacks” and see if there is anything that interests me?
Literally all those things are encouraged! It’s in fact expected for others to donate, because otherwise the library would slowly empty itself out through attrition/non-returns.
Oh, there’s a map! Great, now I can setup a route to find books to steal and sell back to book shops to feed my meth addiction /s
i live in an apartment and i want to make one in the hallway by the door for everyone :3
That’s nice, but do people still read physical books?
IMO the best community library one can have is the internet, and sites like Anna’s Archive allow for access to pretty much every book in existence from the comfort of your own bed.
People hate me when I say this, but in my opinion physical books are a novelty of the past, sure it’s useful in an apocalypse for preservation and whatnot, but physical books are just limited and unpractical.
That must be why physical bookstores are seeing huge resurgence in sales I guess.
I like my kindle as much as the next person, as well as self host a book repo, but physical books are absolutely not a novelty of the past.
libraries also have dvds you can rent which are awesome. they also partner with libby/cw mars for ebooks
Do you have any children?
No I don’t.
If I had children I would teach them to download books, unless they were too young and couldn’t understand the steps, then I would download for them.
Give a man a book and he will read for a day, teach a man how to download books, and he will have literature for the rest of his life.
It’s widely accepted among pediatricians and psychologists that you should delay introducing your kids to screens as long as possible. We started reading to our kid when they were a newborn and there is no way in hell that I would be blasting them with a tablet screen (children’s ebooks tend to be pdfs because of all the graphics, which also rules out using e-ink readers). Reading to a child is also a pre-bedtime activity in low light where stimuli should be reduced; a tablet or e-reader is far from ideal here.
A lot of children’s books in the 0-4 range are also tactile, include lift-the-flaps, have mirrors or noisemakers, and are safe to chew on. The other thing is that in order to teach independence, the kid needs to be able to access and choose books on their own which is something a physical books and a shelf is really good at and an e-reader is really bad at.
One may argue that physical books are expensive, impractical, or whatever, but there are several organizations that send free books monthly to kids (we are subscribed to two of them). Public libraries are really good for exposing kids to books that don’t have to be purchased as well as teaching additional skills like:
- patience (can’t have a book another kid has, or have to wait until we can go to the library),
- spatial awareness (where the library is, where the children’s shelves are), and
- temporary possession of objects (the books have to be returned).
And to your earlier point about physical books being “a novelty of the past,” I would counter by saying that physical books and ebooks are not a binary pair and using them to read is not an exclusive or (the exception being children’s books).
- Textbooks are great candidates for ebook versions because of their intended use and unintended bulk; there are also enhancements to ebooks that work really well for textbooks and manuals, like search/find.
- Fast-paced novels, especially those in a series, are great candidates for ebooks particularly when the reader knows they will consume multiple books quickly.
- Physical books are preferable when dealing with images or large formats. I can’t imagine reading a coffee-table book or art book is as effective on e-reader.
- Physical books are also better options for complicated texts, especially ones that the reader needs to quickly refer to multiple sections of text while reading e.g. indices, appendices, or that chapter where a character is first introduced. I know there’s digital analogues, but they don’t work for everyone.
- E-books make sense when you want to have hundreds or thousands of books immediately on hand, or don’t want to clutter a dwelling with bookshelves.
- Physical books are great for acquiring out-of-print titles. Sure, someone may have created a decent pdf or epub of it, but there are texts that are easier to find used physical copies than a digital version.
- In a complete reversal of what I just wrote, e-books are great for finding out-of-print titles that are prohibitively expensive to acquire. Thanks to that random internet user who created that spectacular pdf.
- Digital versions of manga or comics make a lot of sense, especially when considering the amount of space those collected items require.
At the end of the day, the medium you use to read is a preference and I am a strong advocate for audiobooks, ebooks, and physical books being simultaneously available. What I am not an advocate for, is the dismissal of the print on physical media as if it is not one of the most stable and easily accessible methods for communication. No matter how you argue it, at the end of the day, ebooks and audiobooks still require mediation and energy. Those formats also impose technical and financial barriers to access (you may be savvy enough to access thousands of books for free and maintain your own e-reader that respects your privacy, but the majority of people to whom e-books are marketed to cannot). I can lend or give away a physical book to anyone I meet and they can immediately read it; the same cannot be said for digitally reformatted texts.
It’s widely accepted among pediatricians and psychologists that you should delay introducing your kids to screens as long as possible.
Well, when I was a kid my favorite things where always electronics, TV, radio, music, so if I had children I would never deprive my children of electronics, no matter what the “experts” say.
A lot of children’s books in the 0-4 range are also tactile, include lift-the-flaps, have mirrors or noisemakers, and are safe to chew on. The other thing is that in order to teach independence, the kid needs to be able to access and choose books on their own which is something a physical books and a shelf is really good at and an e-reader is really bad at.
That is fair, for those kind of books I guess I have agree that they can’t replaced with digital alternatives.
Physical books are preferable when dealing with images or large formats. I can’t imagine reading a coffee-table book or art book is as effective on e-reader.
That is a good point, for those kinds of books in particular I guess physical copy is preferable.
Physical books are also better options for complicated texts, especially ones that the reader needs to quickly refer to multiple sections of text while reading e.g. indices, appendices, or that chapter where a character is first introduced. I know there’s digital analogues, but they don’t work for everyone.
Well, I have to disagree on this one, if I’m dealing with complicated texts where I need to quickly refer to multiple sections then nothing beats being able to crtl + f. Also scrolling is much faster than turning pages. But I guess it can be a personal thing.
Those formats also impose technical and financial barriers to access (you may be savvy enough to access thousands of books for free and maintain your own e-reader that respects your privacy, but the majority of people to whom e-books are marketed to cannot). I can lend or give away a physical book to anyone I meet and they can immediately read it; the same cannot be said for digitally reformatted texts.
That’s a fair argument, still, I think the financial barrier to acquire physical books overall is much much higher acquiring the same book physically. Yes you can lend a book from a library, but in my experience libraries never have anything worth reading, which means the only viable solution is paying full price for a book.
I think you are also greatly exaggerating the technical skills needed to download a book, sometimes even just searching “book name pdf download” is enough to download a book, which can be done on a smartphone that most people already own.
As for privacy, it’s true that most people don’t have devices capable of downloading and reading the book on a private system, however, buying a physical book online or lending it from a library also means the book is registered to the reader’s name electronically, in this case tied to the user’s real name and payment details.
Now I actually favor reading on a screen, over paper or e-ink, I find much more comfortable reading from an uniform light source that I can regulate and select the background and foreground color, over having to rely on natural light, which more often than not, it’s either too dark or too bright. But even if hated screens, an used e-reader can be bought for the price of only 2 or 3 physical books.
Still, it’s down to a matter of personal opinion, I understand that some people prefer to read paper the same way if I could afford and had extra space I would enjoy listening to some vinyl records, still from a practical/economical standpoint, I still think digital advantages greatly outweighs it’s disadvantages.
Well, when I was a kid my favorite things where always electronics, TV, radio, music, so if I had children I would never deprive my children of electronics, no matter what the “experts” say.
Not electronics, screens. My kid has lots of music and electronic toys, just not a tablet or smartphone to play with independently (yet). And it’s not about deprivation, it’s about moderation. The screen moratorium is mostly for children under age 3 or 4 as very young children are pure hedonists and they lack emotional regulation and impulse control.
Well, I have to disagree on this one, if I’m dealing with complicated texts where I need to quickly refer to multiple sections then nothing beats being able to crtl + f. Also scrolling is much faster than turning pages. But I guess it can be a personal thing.
I concede that this heavily determined by personal flow and I even noted that point in my original comment. I think both our perspectives on this are valid, but I just wanted to clarify that by “complicated texts,” I mean texts where you need to have immediate or quick access to jump back and forth between sections e.g. scholarly editions or books like House of Leaves that are literally “complex text.”
Yes you can lend a book from a library, but in my experience libraries never have anything worth reading…
This may be determined by the libraries that you have access to, but where I live I can get almost any in print book from my library. Granted, I can’t get it immediately, but through inter-library loan, I get a lot of books that aren’t in my local libraries’ collections that I would otherwise have to purchase. The main thing is to have a reading queue and place requests in advance which, I admit, is its own skill. My neighborhood is also full of the little free libraries that the original thread is in reference to, which have been a great source of free books (I also give away books to the free libraries, too).
I think you are also greatly exaggerating the technical skills needed to download a book, sometimes even just searching “book name pdf download” is enough to download a book, which can be done on a smartphone that most people already own.
I’m not exaggerating at all. Sure, it is easy at face value, but it really does assume a lot of preexisting digital literacy and technical knowledge. We might be reaching a point where enough people have these skills from youth, but older generations are still lacking a lot basic tech literacy.
…buying a physical book online or lending it from a library also means the book is registered to the reader’s name electronically, in this case tied to the user’s real name and payment details.
Okay, so two things here:
- I’m not talking about privacy regarding purchasing goods online (good point, but that’s a different privacy concern), I’m talking about the privacy ecosystem on the device itself e.g. bloatware infested tablets, proprietary walled-garden e-readers, and apps that exist to collect data and serve ads.
- All libraries in the United States, at least for now, are very protective of patron data. Some libraries even regularly purge the check-out history. Bullet three of the America Library Association’s code of professional ethics even states: “We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.” It’s baked into the modern library profession to protect the patron’s privacy. I haven’t heard of any entity or group hacking (or subpoenaing) public libraries for check-out history other than the Federal government.
Now I actually favor reading on a screen…
You might be a monster. 😂
