As someone who likes to look into little free libraries in the US while out walking, I'd beg to disagree with the generalization of US book owners - at least what I've seen.
I swear, every time I peek inside a little library, its like a daycare reading corner meets a dan brown fan club. Always a pile of kids book with covers torn off and crayon drawings added on. And then 5 copies of the latest Dan Brown novel. I don't really need to read any more thrillers turned movies, thank you.
That's because people are taking out the good books and not putting in other good books. You should contribute, too. And periodically the owner should prune the junk.
I got bitched out by my son from bringing home two Piers Anthony books from one of those little libraries, I told him that Anthony was pretty good before Xanth.
All around Ithaca there are little boxes, sometimes like a mailbox, where you can “take a book or leave a book”. We also have bookshelves all over the place with free children’s books that are sponsored by an NGO.
I remember picking up a copy of Rights Talk at a free books book in Montreal, thanks the most political book I’ve seen which I like a lot despite a very dated take on the Americans with Disabilities act (e.g. it is not all controversial the way it was when it was new.). The success of Obamacare also shows that the impasses it predicts don’t necessarily happen in practice although certain “culture war” topics are as pathological as ever.
> One bookshelf owner said, "I'm delighted to read feedback on books picked to reflect my view on the world."
If the idea is to show people books reflecting your view of the world, I can imagine that in the US it actually would get political real freaking fast.
In some temples in Japan one can buy a small wooden sign where one can write one's wishes/prayer onto it, the sign comes with a piece of rope to hang on a prayer tree. When I visited in 2019, many of the signs just had "5 demands" written on them, written presumably by Hong Kongers[1].
And to throw a grenade into the conversation, I was in a hostel in Iceland where there's a wall made of blackboard material where travellers can leave their messages. I noticed one of the messages was "Palestine" (nothing provocative like having the word "Free" in front of it), and next to it was an aggressive chalk writing in the tone of "Fuck you!" or wishing the country death. (I don't remember exactly what it said). I had a chuckle because it was the opposite of what the media usually portrays as who's the agressor and who's the victim.
I feel like the library can only work in Japan, and not the rest of the world, however civilized they claim to be...
If you are interested in this kind of sociology, visit public libraries in random places while you pass through. They are sometimes hugely different. Perhaps in which foreign languages they favor. Perhaps in the proportion of religious or political books in the "new" section. Perhaps in the money or care that goes in the building. Then there are things like the Death Star's public library.
That's so cool! I'd love to have one of these around or open one myself. It says they have no personnel, so there's nobody present at all? Maybe that can only work in Japan.
Can anyone find a Youtube vid on one of these? I'd be really curious.
It says there are no personnel costs. It also says bookshelf owners are also involved in library operations, including being at the library to assist visitors.
It's similar in a way, but I like that it aims to be more social than a little free library, or the communal bookshelves I've had in various apartment buildings I've lived in.
Personally, I'd be interested to find people in my neighborhood who are also into Murakami (Ryu or Haruki) and wouldn't mind donating time to a library/social space. Stuff like this can bring a neighborhood together.
Not a fan of little free libraries, personally. They are a dumping ground for unwanted books, and they’re placed in neighborhoods that traditionally have the most access to books, not the least.
Libraries are not just stacks of books. Information access is an ongoing challenge that requires experts to help others navigate. Libraries have librarians for this. In that sense, LFLs aren’t libraries at all, they’re just book boxes with an unclear mission and no documented success criteria.
Unwanted? By you maybe? They were purchased at some point. Someone took the effort to put them in a place others can take (opposed to just trashing them - which is where most unwanted things go)
> unclear mission and no documented success criteria.
I think if a single person (rich or poor) read a single book they otherwise wouldn't... then it was a success.
The books were obviously not wanted by the people who put them there, otherwise they would have kept them.
A single person reading a book they wouldn’t have otherwise is an absolutely miserable ROI for the materials and labor involved. It would be much more efficient to just offer the first person you meet a free book of their choice from Amazon.
You don't have to keep things you like. It's okay to share them and give them away to others. It does not diminish how much you liked or wanted that item to begin with. By sharing it, you are trying to spread that want that you once had. I admit this isn't the case always, but sometimes.
Eh - whats the harm? Not everything needs to have a positive ROI.
“What’s the harm?” is just turning the question around because the original question — “what’s the benefit?” — doesn’t have a satisfying answer.
If you want to reduce it down to “LFLs make people with extra books feel good” then, great, it’s obviously a resounding success, as evidenced by all the articles of people who built them beaming.
I really like the idea of things coming back to meatspace as they call it. I feel like I've been far too online these past couple of decades and it has increasingly felt empty and meaningless compared to even minor interactions between real people.
I'd take a sticky note of someones thoughts on a book compared to 10,000 reviews on GoodReads.
> I'd take a sticky note of someones thoughts on a book compared to 10,000 reviews on GoodReads.
I second that. It only took a month in to my first book club to realize that the main reason I was coming back wasn't because "so and so book is so interesting" but because I loved hearing others' thoughts on the book. We could read a cook-book for all I care; it's chewing on thoughts and issues in person that matter.
Wish I hadn't waited till my late 20's to get involved with a book club.
I finished reading two paper books in the past week, and haven't started up my ereader to finish the other two active books there in awhile; paper is a refreshing novelty, and it's funny I have to specify paper books.
Also, my book club consists of one friend and me, and I get recommendations from other friends and family, sometimes NPR book concierge, sometimes I ask a librarian, sometimes from hn, and all that is enough.
That's beautiful – unlike a Goodreads or a really structured web platform, people ("users" seems very inadequate) have such an opportunity to customize physical shelves – a return to Myspace creativity?
Ok, I felt the urge to ask :
Could someone explain to me why this is a bad idea and it couldn’t happen in, let’s say, Montreal ?
Like if I rent a flat, arrange it as a library, put books everywhere and we all pay to have access to books, or the place itself to chill and read ?
Am I dreaming ? Could that work ?
Public libraries are a bit of a modern invention. Historically, most libraries were private ones, often arranged by small groups of people who housed their collections together so books could be loaned to each other.
Local governments and rich philanthropists helped spread the public library concept to be what it is today.
In America you would run into at minimum the following, or a summary of why we can't have nice things:
Cost: rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in a major metro, even split 10-20 ways, could still be a few hundred a month.
Permitting: Even if the apartment is zoned appropriately for a club or business, still need construction permit for the shelves/weight stored on them, fire permit for the storage of flammable materials, fire permitting/review for maximum occupancy, plus at least one other that won't be apparent until neck deep in the project.
Incorporation: Would be very, very wise to do this under an LLC (in CA, an extra 1000/year tax + minor fees and hassle)
Liability: Need insurance in case someone gets hurt (e.g. someone trips over a pile of books left on the floor)
Lease: Boiler plate leases will typically indirectly disallow this sort of endeavor (via guest limits or similar)
(This isn't even considering any library-specific laws or requirements, which presumably exist in at least some jurisdictions)
"club space" in America is a nightmare, yes. You forgot to mention the neighbors not liking you and making trouble. But hacker spaces in particular do exist, usually on a small budget, and they make it work. Not impossible.
For that matter, the hacker space Noisebridge in San Francisco houses a large collection of data books and other often dated technical books. If you need to find the paper, they are a reasonable place to go and look.
My concern would be traffic and weight. Public buildings are designed with thicker/wider and more numerous structural elements compared to residential buildings.
I believe the residential standard for concrete structures in India (where I am) specifies a minimum live load bearing capacity of 2kN/m2 (approx 200 kg/m2). This is much higher for schools/colleges/libraries/auditoriums etc.
Most shelving materials as well as paper itself floats, so bookshelves can't be anywhere near as heavy as an aquarium even if you have them packed impossibly dense.
Some one deleted their reply to you listing densities of paper and water. Here are some figures from Wikipedia
- The density of paper ranges from 250 kg/m3 (16 lb/cu ft) for tissue paper to 1500 kg/m3 (94 lb/cu ft) for some specialty paper. Printing paper is about 800 kg/m3 (50 lb/cu ft).
- Water: 1000 kg/m3
So they are not that far apart when you consider that the average bookshelf is often bigger than the average aquarium.
Private libraries have been a thing for a long time (I currently belong to one in Boston...) I don't think you could pull it off in a flat, but in a commercial space? Sure.
Pardon the boomerism but back in my day it was young kids that took over the local library and I would describe it as much. Library services were tailored to them and they were the primary audience.
Interesting concept. I did a big purge of books about 15 years ago because I was just drowning in them. I moved a lot, they were heavy, and most I wasn't going to re-read.
I have been toying with the idea of a group private circulating library. A network of (more or less friends) arrange to have their books available to the entire network. Most likely through an online catalog and enough in-person meetings among the network to provide for routing.
It used to be that I was wary of books or movies not coming back. But currently some of my books are (to me) collectors items while others are merely not easily available from the many local public libraries. These are not really precious to me and they take budget and space and there is no reason for them not to circulate. Selling them back out seems too much trouble. But having access to the entire network's collection would be useful.
Ok. Books from your personal collection. For many years I’ve thought of the public library as my personal library—I don’t need to store, and I can borrow (practically) any time. I love my local library.
But I’ve had this belief shattered by de-acquisitioning practices.
In response I’ve been imagining a website where library patrons could sponsor particular items from the catalog, and in turn this would inform the staff about what the local patrons want to be physically present in the library. Something of an art project, because I don’t see the library ever adopting this into their actual online catalog.
I believe if actual local patrons sponsored individual assets, then there would be less capricious or statistical deacquisitions.
Pruning is particularly annoying when it hits books that are not available anywhere near that library. If it was something that's everywhere I wouldn't mind. But if I use the public libraries for more than just random entertainment, I need them to be somewhat reliable. And around here pruning seems to be entirely based on how often books are checked out at that library. That's a poor criteria.
It's fair that no library has space for as many books as they would like. But they could at least coordinate with the other regional libraries so that things remain available. And for that matter, my local library has so much space they should do any pruning at all for now.
> "...they could at least coordinate with the other regional libraries so that things remain available."
I guess I'm spoiled living on Long Island, NY. There are 58 branches of my county's library in Nassau County, which is ~450 sq.mi or one branch every eight square miles. At least they profess to check before removing a resource.
That said, I like visiting the library and speaking with regulars, and interacting with staff who have become my friends. I enjoy the feeling of community. And I feel a personal connection when what I like is physically present in my local library, and not just available for interlibrary loan.
I've expressed this to the librarians. Their response is one excuse after another about space, circulation, budgets, availability of on-line resources--a list of the constraints on their job. And when I'm not persuaded by these arguments, they end saying I'm the only one who has ever made these complaints and I should add a suggestion to the "box". What they won't do is share their work or publish the circulation numbers.
As you can see I want to have libraries where patrons engage and participate. I love these ideas and I want to read about more of them.
Many participating libraries in California and, on a good year, a couple in Nevada have a glorious cooperative system. Cities, counties, universities... A majority of items are easily available from the system when not on the shelf at some local branch. A free and fast alternative to the old style interlibrary loan.
At the several libraries where I have tried to use them, suggestions for purchases are readily followed. Surprisingly regardless of holdings elsewhere in the system! The librarians seem eager for these requests. At some libraries that leads to excesses: a couple yards of religious stuff suddenly appears in the New section... Then that requester calms down.
Here the problem truly is pruning: done without regard for the otherwise massive holdings of the cooperative system. Or for the massive amounts of space still available for stacks at my local library.
I guess idiosyncratic local quirks here and there. Operating suggestions and attending board meetings is possible but I have not made a crusade of the pruning issue. Not so far anyway.
For a few years, the director of one of the county libraries was hell bent on making non-residents pay for a membership. So I was not a member of that one for a few years - enough other libraries left. Until she left and things returned to sanity. Things in public libraries can be run pretty "seat of the pants" by just a few people.
I struggled with this very question, but there is politics to consider before becoming involved. My community library is, arguably, overstaffed. I don't know when this started. The branch has gone above the county hiring standards, and created well paid positions. The remainder of the library staff is part-time minimum wage. If I become involved, or even show interest in management, I could find myself in conflict. Not a decision to make lightly.
Board meetings are largely public. I've volunteered with various non-profit organizations, and had very rewarding experiences. The first thing I noticed is they appreciate your participation, but then when you're not needed you also feel it.
59 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 137 ms ] threadI hope this spreads to all other countries.
I remember picking up a copy of Rights Talk at a free books book in Montreal, thanks the most political book I’ve seen which I like a lot despite a very dated take on the Americans with Disabilities act (e.g. it is not all controversial the way it was when it was new.). The success of Obamacare also shows that the impasses it predicts don’t necessarily happen in practice although certain “culture war” topics are as pathological as ever.
> One bookshelf owner said, "I'm delighted to read feedback on books picked to reflect my view on the world."
If the idea is to show people books reflecting your view of the world, I can imagine that in the US it actually would get political real freaking fast.
In some temples in Japan one can buy a small wooden sign where one can write one's wishes/prayer onto it, the sign comes with a piece of rope to hang on a prayer tree. When I visited in 2019, many of the signs just had "5 demands" written on them, written presumably by Hong Kongers[1].
And to throw a grenade into the conversation, I was in a hostel in Iceland where there's a wall made of blackboard material where travellers can leave their messages. I noticed one of the messages was "Palestine" (nothing provocative like having the word "Free" in front of it), and next to it was an aggressive chalk writing in the tone of "Fuck you!" or wishing the country death. (I don't remember exactly what it said). I had a chuckle because it was the opposite of what the media usually portrays as who's the agressor and who's the victim.
I feel like the library can only work in Japan, and not the rest of the world, however civilized they claim to be...
[1] https://www.scmp.com/yp/discover/news/hong-kong/article/3065...
But then I like libraries in general.
Can anyone find a Youtube vid on one of these? I'd be really curious.
Personally, I'd be interested to find people in my neighborhood who are also into Murakami (Ryu or Haruki) and wouldn't mind donating time to a library/social space. Stuff like this can bring a neighborhood together.
You don't get to know who takes or leaves it, but it is a nice little feature that enhances the walkability of our neighborhood.
Libraries are not just stacks of books. Information access is an ongoing challenge that requires experts to help others navigate. Libraries have librarians for this. In that sense, LFLs aren’t libraries at all, they’re just book boxes with an unclear mission and no documented success criteria.
> unclear mission and no documented success criteria.
I think if a single person (rich or poor) read a single book they otherwise wouldn't... then it was a success.
A single person reading a book they wouldn’t have otherwise is an absolutely miserable ROI for the materials and labor involved. It would be much more efficient to just offer the first person you meet a free book of their choice from Amazon.
Eh - whats the harm? Not everything needs to have a positive ROI.
If you want to reduce it down to “LFLs make people with extra books feel good” then, great, it’s obviously a resounding success, as evidenced by all the articles of people who built them beaming.
I'd take a sticky note of someones thoughts on a book compared to 10,000 reviews on GoodReads.
I second that. It only took a month in to my first book club to realize that the main reason I was coming back wasn't because "so and so book is so interesting" but because I loved hearing others' thoughts on the book. We could read a cook-book for all I care; it's chewing on thoughts and issues in person that matter.
Wish I hadn't waited till my late 20's to get involved with a book club.
Also, my book club consists of one friend and me, and I get recommendations from other friends and family, sometimes NPR book concierge, sometimes I ask a librarian, sometimes from hn, and all that is enough.
Edit: Seems to have a map - https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/5v5a3o/map_of_all...
Local governments and rich philanthropists helped spread the public library concept to be what it is today.
Cost: rent for a 2 bedroom apartment in a major metro, even split 10-20 ways, could still be a few hundred a month.
Permitting: Even if the apartment is zoned appropriately for a club or business, still need construction permit for the shelves/weight stored on them, fire permit for the storage of flammable materials, fire permitting/review for maximum occupancy, plus at least one other that won't be apparent until neck deep in the project.
Incorporation: Would be very, very wise to do this under an LLC (in CA, an extra 1000/year tax + minor fees and hassle)
Liability: Need insurance in case someone gets hurt (e.g. someone trips over a pile of books left on the floor)
Lease: Boiler plate leases will typically indirectly disallow this sort of endeavor (via guest limits or similar)
(This isn't even considering any library-specific laws or requirements, which presumably exist in at least some jurisdictions)
For that matter, the hacker space Noisebridge in San Francisco houses a large collection of data books and other often dated technical books. If you need to find the paper, they are a reasonable place to go and look.
My concern would be traffic and weight. Public buildings are designed with thicker/wider and more numerous structural elements compared to residential buildings.
I believe the residential standard for concrete structures in India (where I am) specifies a minimum live load bearing capacity of 2kN/m2 (approx 200 kg/m2). This is much higher for schools/colleges/libraries/auditoriums etc.
Some one deleted their reply to you listing densities of paper and water. Here are some figures from Wikipedia
- The density of paper ranges from 250 kg/m3 (16 lb/cu ft) for tissue paper to 1500 kg/m3 (94 lb/cu ft) for some specialty paper. Printing paper is about 800 kg/m3 (50 lb/cu ft).
- Water: 1000 kg/m3
So they are not that far apart when you consider that the average bookshelf is often bigger than the average aquarium.
I didn't know people using servies they were entitled to is considered taking them over.
It used to be that I was wary of books or movies not coming back. But currently some of my books are (to me) collectors items while others are merely not easily available from the many local public libraries. These are not really precious to me and they take budget and space and there is no reason for them not to circulate. Selling them back out seems too much trouble. But having access to the entire network's collection would be useful.
Anyone has pointers to people who have done that?
But I’ve had this belief shattered by de-acquisitioning practices.
In response I’ve been imagining a website where library patrons could sponsor particular items from the catalog, and in turn this would inform the staff about what the local patrons want to be physically present in the library. Something of an art project, because I don’t see the library ever adopting this into their actual online catalog.
I believe if actual local patrons sponsored individual assets, then there would be less capricious or statistical deacquisitions.
It's fair that no library has space for as many books as they would like. But they could at least coordinate with the other regional libraries so that things remain available. And for that matter, my local library has so much space they should do any pruning at all for now.
I guess I'm spoiled living on Long Island, NY. There are 58 branches of my county's library in Nassau County, which is ~450 sq.mi or one branch every eight square miles. At least they profess to check before removing a resource.
That said, I like visiting the library and speaking with regulars, and interacting with staff who have become my friends. I enjoy the feeling of community. And I feel a personal connection when what I like is physically present in my local library, and not just available for interlibrary loan.
I've expressed this to the librarians. Their response is one excuse after another about space, circulation, budgets, availability of on-line resources--a list of the constraints on their job. And when I'm not persuaded by these arguments, they end saying I'm the only one who has ever made these complaints and I should add a suggestion to the "box". What they won't do is share their work or publish the circulation numbers.
As you can see I want to have libraries where patrons engage and participate. I love these ideas and I want to read about more of them.
At the several libraries where I have tried to use them, suggestions for purchases are readily followed. Surprisingly regardless of holdings elsewhere in the system! The librarians seem eager for these requests. At some libraries that leads to excesses: a couple yards of religious stuff suddenly appears in the New section... Then that requester calms down.
Here the problem truly is pruning: done without regard for the otherwise massive holdings of the cooperative system. Or for the massive amounts of space still available for stacks at my local library.
I guess idiosyncratic local quirks here and there. Operating suggestions and attending board meetings is possible but I have not made a crusade of the pruning issue. Not so far anyway.
For a few years, the director of one of the county libraries was hell bent on making non-residents pay for a membership. So I was not a member of that one for a few years - enough other libraries left. Until she left and things returned to sanity. Things in public libraries can be run pretty "seat of the pants" by just a few people.
I struggled with this very question, but there is politics to consider before becoming involved. My community library is, arguably, overstaffed. I don't know when this started. The branch has gone above the county hiring standards, and created well paid positions. The remainder of the library staff is part-time minimum wage. If I become involved, or even show interest in management, I could find myself in conflict. Not a decision to make lightly.
Board meetings are largely public. I've volunteered with various non-profit organizations, and had very rewarding experiences. The first thing I noticed is they appreciate your participation, but then when you're not needed you also feel it.