Posted on 01/23/2012 4:57:38 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
Madison - Alicia Rheal is an artist who lives on a quiet street within sight of the Capitol.
She's also a librarian.
Instead of rows and rows of bookshelves filled with Dewey Decimal System-categorized tomes, Rheal's library is decidedly low-tech and charming. No library cards are required. There are no fines. In fact, library users are encouraged to take any book they want and keep it.
Rheal is one of many caretakers of the growing phenomenon of Little Free Libraries - tiny boxes designed to promote literacy and the love of reading through free book exchanges. Each Little Free Library has a sign that says "Take a Book, Leave a Book," though it's not a requirement to do both.
Rheal has made three Little Free Libraries. The first one she constructed out of recycled materials left over from a studio built in her backyard, complete with a shingled roof and a glass window to keep the donated books dry. She's also making one from a discarded dollhouse to be donated for charity.
She installed her first Little Free Library outside her Madison home in October.
"It was great. All of our neighbors gathered in front of the house and were chatting about books," Rheal said as she sat on her front stoop with her dogs Aberdeen and Tin Tin.
The turnover of books has been impressive. On this day the library in front of Rheal's home included: Raymond Carver's "Ultramarine," "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" by Douglas Hofstadter, Hilary Clinton's "Living History" and Book 10 of Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events."
(Excerpt) Read more at jsonline.com ...
I prefer my full title: “Knight Rampant Bibliophile, Protector of Knowledge, Purveyor of Inquiry, Defender of Aged Wisdom, and Champion of Lady Liberty’s Words Present and Past”
hmm - I like that so much I think I’ll bump Mr. Burke from my tagline... at least for a bit.
Both my hairdresser and my doctor have Book Nooks Corners....bookshelves that have free books. Drop off your books, take some or whatever. I have been donating my book collection to these and our local library. I am strictly Nook/Kindle now. I have had both.
I like the idea of these little free libraries, rather than throw unwanted books in the garbage. Only the people who want the books take them. Hopefully they bring some to share for those they take. I’ve been President of the local library board and find that the “professional” librarians are arrogant. When books are donated, they never go into the collection, if they are more than 2 years old. They go into annual book sales where they are sold for a nickel, even if they were a $50 book originally.
When the library buys new books (they have a generous acquisition allowance in this town) the librarians don’t put them on the circulation shelf until all of them have read the book first. This takes a while, so I generally buy my own copy because I don’t want to wait. I like to own my own copies anyway because I like to go over the text if I like the book. I like to re-read the best parts. But, after a while, I collect too many books and I have to shed some of them.
"Funds for this Library donated by Haliburton Broadcasting Group"
seriously though, i benefited from a Carnegie library back in my shirt-tail days.
I actually read about this a few days back - I would be happy just leafing through them with white gloved hands.
Just last month my alma mater, started a long-term project, with displaying the book.
I remember, years and years ago, being at the Audubon house in Key West; a copy of this Audubon "Birds of America" folio was out on a table, in the open, and I *leafed* through it. ;)
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