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brooklynite

(93,873 posts)
Wed May 3, 2017, 02:50 PM May 2017

Against Little Free Libraries

City Lab:

The take-a-book, leave-a-book movement has gone global. As of last year, Little Free Libraries—those birdhouse-looking book-stops that pop up in people’s front yards—were represented in every U.S. state. Little Free Library has now touched down in more than 70 other countries. These book exchanges are now 50,000 strong and growing.

And at least one person wants to put a stop to them.

“There was something that kind of irked me about the title,” says Jane Schmidt, librarian at Ryerson University in Toronto. “As a librarian, my gut reaction to that was, ‘You know what else is a free library? A regular library.’”

Where many people see a charming yard decoration or a heart-warming civic-minded gesture, Schmidt finds something more nefarious at work. In a recent article for the Journal of Radical Librarianship—this is a real publication, launched in 2014 by the Radical Librarians Collective, now three peer-reviewed volumes in—she and another Canadian library scholar outline the case against Little Free Libraries, diving deep into mapping data, network effects, and recent library history to make their stand.




I'm sort of fuzzy at the complaint, but it seems to boil down to: "real" libraries are better and these are just an excuse for educated people in better neighborhoods to show off all the books they read.
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Against Little Free Libraries (Original Post) brooklynite May 2017 OP
Sounds like baloney to me, elleng May 2017 #1
You're more generous than I am Retrograde May 2017 #2
I love libraries, and will defend the importance of libraries to my dying breath. Aristus May 2017 #3
Most of the time that I've seen them, they're either filled with religious books or haele May 2017 #4
Jeez Louise, even my Podunk Carnegie library has a 'free library'.... Brother Buzz May 2017 #5
I have a Little Free Library. The Velveteen Ocelot May 2017 #6

Retrograde

(10,073 posts)
2. You're more generous than I am
Wed May 3, 2017, 03:09 PM
May 2017

I interpret the complaint more like "How dare people share books and call their book boxes "Little Libraries"? They're not real librarians like I am! I went to librarian school and was properly initiated into the Secret Cabal of Librarians, so I know how to do this sort of thing and you ignoramuses who don't have a library science degree should stand by respectfully and not take it upon yourselves to share books with the masses."

There are a few Little Libraries in my neighborhood. They're open all day and all night - the "real" library is only open 5 days a week and only during the day. The selection isn't as good, but that's not their purpose.

(Yes, I know quite a few librarians. Most are reasonable people, but there are a few who seem to think that only a few stalwart librarians stand between us and the End of Civilization (as we know it). )

Aristus

(66,096 posts)
3. I love libraries, and will defend the importance of libraries to my dying breath.
Wed May 3, 2017, 03:18 PM
May 2017

But I think the ladies protest too much.

Take-a-book, leave-a-book neighborhood libraries are wonderful things that should be defended with equal fervor.

Not every community has a public library; some that do are too far to reach for those without appropriate transportation. Easy access to books, easy access to the means of self-education should be every human being's birthright.

A literate public; an informed public. That's the prize. Let's not take our eyes off it...

haele

(12,581 posts)
4. Most of the time that I've seen them, they're either filled with religious books or
Wed May 3, 2017, 03:21 PM
May 2017

Romance novels. I've seen very few kids books.

I have a friend that has a small book and craft shop. She tells me there's a particularly bad habit of some of the Xtian book stores in the area to dump some of their overstock in those free book boxes to "improve a neighborhood".

Haele

Brother Buzz

(36,216 posts)
5. Jeez Louise, even my Podunk Carnegie library has a 'free library'....
Wed May 3, 2017, 03:32 PM
May 2017

And it's mobile; it's pushed out into the adjacent park on sunny days.

The Velveteen Ocelot

(115,280 posts)
6. I have a Little Free Library.
Wed May 3, 2017, 04:10 PM
May 2017

There are quite a number of them in my neighborhood (and no, it's not a rich neighborhood and we don't use the LFLs to show off all the books we read). Mine started out with a bunch of my books that I don't plan to read again (I have an embarrassing fondness for paperback murder mysteries), but the way these things work is that you either borrow a book and return it later, or you add some books of your own. I got my LFL four years ago, and none of the original books are there now, but it's cycled through all kinds of books. Lately I've seen a fair number of children's books. There have been some religious books but not many. Once in awhile I find religious tracts in it but I toss those as soon as I find them.

At a "real" library you can look for and check out specific books that you want, while LFLs are just grab bags. They don't compete with "real" libraries, which I also like and use, simply because your choice is whatever's in them at the time. But it's fun to see what turns up, and people like them.

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