Today, there are more than 80,000 Little Free Libraries, but the movement started with one Wisconsin man who had a simple idea.
By: Bailey Richardson
Tags: Interview, Little Free Libraries, Librarians, Community, Community Engagement

BR: On that thread of personalization, what did you guys at headquarters have to do to grow Wisconsin and the United States to 88 countries around the world? Have you had to localize any of your resources?

MA: Our headquarters is still in Hudson, Wisconsin, where that very first Little Free Library was built. There are 12 of us in the office and we’re always amazed and delighted that we get to work with people all around the world.

I think that one of the ways that we’ve been successful doing that is that we really do want people to take the Little Free Library concept and to make it their own and to make it work within their community.

So in Cleveland, there were areas of the city where there’s a lack of access to books and kids who don’t have any books at home. There we see Little Free Libraries really being used as points of book access. We have a couple of champions there who really have accelerated their own city, a Little Free Library movement and so for them it’s about getting books into the hands of kids. But you might see in San Francisco more of an artist community who is using a Little Free Library. It is almost a piece of street art, so people are painting them or making them more of a sculptural piece. So in that community it might be more about the visual delight of seeing a Little Free Library on the sidewalk.

Kai Elmer Sotto: Margaret, it’s Kai. Whenever any organization in rollout two 88 countries, it’s just incredibly impressive. I’ve worked on technology apps that can’t even spread further than their birth countries.

The thing that I’m always curious — the perspective I think is far more important when your bring something global — is what remains true and universal in all those markets?

MA: The universal elements are really what have really helped the Little Free Library movement spread to 88 countries. Those universal elements are this need and desire to connect with other people, and a love of reading and books. I think people everywhere want to get to know their neighbors and feel like they live in a community that cares. This is one way to do that.

So for example, in South Korea I was talking with the guy who started the very first Little Free Library and South Korea and I was like, how did you, how did you hear about this concept of have a Little Free Library? For him it was, he was on the Internet, he was kind of bored and he for some reason googled the word library and bumped into a Little Free Library. I don’t know how. He had never heard of this concept, but when he saw photos of people in their Little Free Libraries, he just thought it was such a cool idea. He personally loves books. But he really put himself out there because it was a brand new concept when he put out his Little Free Library. It was quite unsuccessful for the first couple of weeks. He really had to educate the people in his neighborhood with signage explaining how it works, but eventually everybody fell in love with it and he started two more Little Free Libraries.

The “Super Stewards” Who Go Above and Beyond

We spotted a Little Free Library in Toronto near Kai’s house.

BR: One of the things that I think a lot of people who have worked with a really passionate community see is that a small group of fanatics tend to do a big percentage of the work.

I wonder hearing you talk about that this man who brought the first one to Korea and has opened a couple more if you see that with LFL: Do you have any superstar stewards? Is that common or are people pretty consistent in their contribution to the LFL community?

MA: Certainly we consider everybody, every steward really special to us. I know it does take a bit of bravery to put up a Little Free Library. Before I was with the organization, and I was researching my book about Little Free Library, I put up my own library. I remember it was almost like you feel like you’re throwing a party and you’re wondering if anybody’s going to come. But within five minutes of putting up the Little Free Library, I was meeting neighbors I had never spoken with before. So we certainly think that every Little Free Library steward is awesome.

And we do also have these super stewards who activate many movements within their own communities. For example in Cleveland, it’s a woman named Margaret Bernstein. I think there are around 400 Little Free Libraries in Cleveland now, largely due to her enthusiasm.

In Lake Worth Florida, which is not a big community, they have more than 100 Little Free Libraries and each one is painted by a local artist.

And then in Sudan, a woman is trying to build momentum behind a Little Free Library movement there. She has established more than a dozen Little Free Libraries and she’s working with local government to do that. So we do love to see the enthusiasm of one person and what that one person can make happen.

Sharalee Armitage Howard — a librarian, artist, and former bookbinder — transformed a110-year-old cottonwood tree in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, into an amazing Little Free Library. More here.

BR: Are stewards connecting across geographies to share ideas or just share creative things that they’re doing? What do you see?

MA: We definitely encourage communication between stewards. We have our public Facebook page, but we also have a private Facebook group that’s just for registered stewards. And so that’s where our stewards get together and they share photos of what they’re doing with their Little Free Library. They’re sharing ideas, they’re sharing problems and challenges they’re having.

They are full of such great ideas. Right now we’re seeing a lot of people decorating their Little Free Libraries for the holidays, so lighting up their Little Free Libraries. Often all of us at the Little Free Library organization are learning from them — asking them questions like what would you like to see? What would you like for us to be doing? So they’ve been a great resource to us in building the movement because there are experts.

Headquarters Provides Key Resources

Kevin Huynh: Can I dig into some of these resources that you provide?This is one of my favorite topics when it comes to community.

MA: When they get their Little Free Library, we give them ideas for having a grand opening for your Little Free Library to get the community involved, how to get books if you need them, different ways to get free or reduced cost of books. So there’s a lot of good information in that and that really kicks off their relationship.

Also, we feel like they’re part of our family and we want them to feel that way too. We have an awesome customer service person named Kimberly at her office and she is talking with stewards all day long. That’s really, really wonderful. So those are some of the touchpoints that we start off with.

KH: What’s one of the biggest challenges that a new steward faces?

MA: It can be really basic things at the beginning, like how high should my Little Free Library be? How do I get people to use my Little Free Library? What kinds of books do you think I should include in my Little Free Library? So a lot of times it’s those “I’m just starting to dip my toe into this pond and I want to make sure that I’m doing things right,” questions. But as I mentioned before, we really don’t want to put a lot of rules on people. We just want to be there for them as they’re starting this new adventure.

Something we do hear a lot is, “Will all the books get stolen when I put them out there?” And that’s a philosophical question of well, can something be stolen? We have heard of cases where people’s whole stash of books will be cleared out in one fell swoop. We also get questions about what to do if your library is vandalized, and you’d be surprised that it’s a small percentage of actual reports we hear, but we do give advice about that often. (Put your Little Free Libraries in a well lit spot, keep it well maintained, and you let your neighbors know that this is their resource too.”)

And another resource that we offer for folks who can’t afford to get a Little Free Library started is a program we started called the impact library program. People can fill out an application and we give away Little Free Libraries at no cost. So that’s a resource that we offer for people so that everybody who wants a Little Free Library, we want them to be able to get one.

KES: Whenever we talked about communities and how they’re growing, we tend to talk about all these new folks that joined in, but I’m curious about the stewards who’ve stayed in the community. What’s the oldest library that you’re aware of?

MA: Well, Todd and Rick started planting Little Free Libraries in 2010. So, we’ll see Little Free Libraries in Madison, Wisconsin or Minneapolis that have been around since 2010 and are still being used. They might need another coat of paint, but they’re still active.

KES: How often do new stewards come in and you may not hear from them again?

I think that for some people their library does become a self-sustaining system and they don’t need to circle back to us with questions. They often will stay active within the private Facebook group for stewards because it’s fun and because there are always new ideas, um, and new ways that you might want to use your Little Free Library. For example, people now sometimes turn their Little Free Library into a little free pantry around a certain time period. Or when it’s time to go back to school, they might add school supplies in their Little Free Library for kids to take around the holidays. So it’s interesting to see how ideas are always evolving around what a Little Free Library can be.

KES: That’s a really cool way to think about the health of any community. It’s two dimensional. One is how many stewards continue to be active. The other one is how the ideas evolve. It seems like your team at headquarters have built this really cool sandbox and all these stewards are in there building all this crazy stuff within it, with a sense of ownership like “No one said I couldn’t do this!”

MA: That’s it. I love to think of it that way. We do see, as I’ve mentioned, this huge creative pool of people.One woman has her Little Free Library with the books, but kind of attached to it she has a little free gallery where she features a local artist’s work that rotates. We just love to see all these new ideas and new ways that people are engaging with their communities.

Making Their Non-Profit Status Official

BR: It’s fun that people take the name to and re-apply it. It’s like a very easy phrase to apply to anything.

One question I have that we didn’t really close the gap on is how did Little Free Library become an official organization. It started as an idea from Todd and Wisconsin, but what motivated you to become an official nonprofit?

MA: That happened in 2012. Part of today’s vision to just share this idea, this very simple idea, farther. Since then we’ve been really lucky to get some nice recognition over the years from the National Book Foundation and Library of Congress and public librarians who we worship. We’re just always amazed to see the number of people getting involved who really seem to care about this movement.

BR: Did becoming an official non-profit have anything to do with figuring out how to keep funding these libraries?

MA: We’re always trying to improve that piece of it to be honest. Part of what we do is our online store where people can buy a Little Free Library that’s already registered, already built or they can buy a kit to build their own Little Free Library. That’s pretty unique for a nonprofit that we have that retail side and especially in the earliest days it really helped. To sustain the organization now as we’re getting bigger and want to do bigger thing, we’re trying to get more funding.

KES: Internally, how do you balance your focus between the things that your organization needs to do like fundraising and the things that you must do for your stewards?

MA: You know, as we grow, there’s more that we need to do and there’s more that we want to do as well. It’s really key for us that we stay connected to our stewards because they are such a big part of this. They’re really what made this movement happen and thrive. So we do have to balance the kind of nuts and bolts work that a nonprofit has to do with this kind of relational work that we all love — connecting with people around the world who are really doing this in their communities and making it all happen.

BR: Margaret, I want to ask you one final question and it’s going to be a personal one. You got your own library. Then you wrote a whole book about the Little Free Library movement. Now you work there. What makes you so passionate about LFL?

MA: Well, first and foremost, I love books. My background is book publishing and journalism. When I saw my first Little Free Library, I just fell in love. It’s one of those things where you get it right away — here’s this little box of books I can take, one, I can give one. You can immediately connect with it. As an introvert, I didn’t know if I would be a good Little Free Library steward and then I discovered that it works for anybody. It’s a great icebreaker. It’s an easy way to connect with the people in your community and you can be as outgoing or as insular as you want, but it’s still a really wonderful thing.

Then working on the book, I just enjoyed talking with people across the country and around the world who are using Little Free Libraries where they live and finding out the unique ways to use it, but also universal appeal. I spoke to one five year old boy and his dad in Qatar who they had just moved there, I believe, from Saudi Arabia. This little five year old boy was looking for a way to make friends, so he and his dad built a Little Free Library and registered it with us and put it on the world map, which is on our website. When they put it in their neighborhood, they started to get to know people right away. The dad would say that everyday after school the first thing his son did was to go and check the Little Free Library. I loved that that was happening on the other side of the world from where I was living–this very universal thing where you want to get to know people in your new school.

While writing the book, I also got to know Todd and everybody at the Little Free Library Organization and I was just head over heels even more because this a group of people who is really trying to make a positive difference. I’m just happy to be a part of that.

BR: Margaret, thank you so much for your time and thanks for doing what you’re doing.