‘Take a Book, Share a Book’ at Little Free Libraries

This story originally appeared in the July 2024 edition of Town&Gown magazine .

It’s an avid reader’s dream: free books, readily available 24 hours a day, seven days a week; no library card required; and best of all, no late fees—in fact, you don’t have to return the books at all.

Of course, I am talking about Little Free Libraries, the post-mounted, weatherproof boxes often found in front of a house or in a local park, filled with books for the taking. A basic LFL resembles a large birdhouse and features a plexiglass-front cabinet door, but, much like the books they carry, the boxes are often designed to spark imagination—perhaps shaped like owls, phone booths or rocket ships, or made from repurposed grandfather clocks, canoes or newspaper vending machines.

According to LittleFreeLibrary.org , the first book-sharing box was installed in 2009 in Hudson, Wisconsin. Today, there are over 175,000 registered LFLs across the world.

Here in Centre County, there are approximately 50 registered LFLs, each owned and operated by local “stewards”—individuals or organizations who set up and maintain the boxes and help curate the contents.

If the steward purchases an identifying charter plaque from the Little Free Library organization, their box is officially registered and appears on a global map, which is accessible through the LFL app or website.

The plaques encourage visitors to “Take a Book; Share a Book,” but, beyond basic expectations of common courtesy, there really are no formal rules. Local stewards say they just want to see their fellow community members enjoy using the libraries as much as they enjoy maintaining them.

Tiffany Mathias
South Pugh Street, State College

She loves books and she loves people, so for Tiffany Mathias, the idea of owning her own LFL was a no-brainer, except for one thing: there was already a similar book-sharing box a few houses away from her on South Pugh Street.

“I hesitated putting it up,” she says, “but it surprisingly gets a lot of traffic. It’s really popular. Even our neighbors are into it.”

Mathias installed the tall black structure a year ago with the help of her father-in-law, who built it to her specifications, which included three shelves: a top shelf for adult books, a middle shelf for teen books and a bottom shelf for children’s books.

“I wanted to make it as kid-friendly as possible, so I ordered some doorknobs from Etsy that are a rabbit, a fox, a dinosaur and a butterfly,” she says. “I just really wanted to make it welcoming so people find enjoyment in it.”

Mathias is certainly enjoying the interaction her box has sparked with strangers and neighbors alike. She says being on a through-street close to downtown draws a wide variety of people to her library, from dogwalkers and college students walking to class to football weekend visitors stopping by in their cars to pick up a book for the ride home.

“It’s been really rewarding, because I’ve gotten to know people who normally wouldn’t stop by and engage,” she says. “It’s brought a lot of happiness that way.”

Mathias says she tries to keep her LFL stocked with about 30 books at a time, and she checks the box regularly to see what might need to be replenished. She sometimes buys replacement children’s books from Schlow Centre Region Library, where they sell gently used books for as little as twenty-five cents apiece. She also enjoys seeing what people have added to the box.

“We’ve had some really great things come through,” she says, and recounts finding items like comic books, stickers, handmade postcards and bookmarks that people have put in the box to share.

“Right now, the most unique thing that’s in there is a book of Quran, which I think is kind of neat,” she says. “It is so nice that I have a community that is broadening the perspective of the box.”

Heather Baumgarten
‘Miss Madeline’s Little Free Library’
Severn Drive, State College

A quick peek at the map on the LFL website reveals that many of the libraries are named. In Heather Baumgarten’s case, her “Miss Madeline’s Little Free Library” is named after her dear friend, writer Madeline Sharples.

The LFL was a birthday gift from Baumgarten’s husband; he had an Amish man build it in 2020. Painting and installing it became a pandemic project for the whole family, Baumgarten says, when her adult children and her grandchildren came to stay for a few weeks that summer.

Painted a cheery mint green accented by a charming floral stencil pattern, the box was installed in front of Baumgarten’s Park Forest home in August of 2020 to great, socially distanced fanfare.

“People saw us painting it and getting it ready, and I think they were excited about it,” she says. “So we had a grand opening for it; we had tables spread out in the yard with free books, bookmarks and treats for the kids.”

The grandmother of four says one of her objectives as an LFL steward is to encourage kids to spend time with books rather than screens.

“We want to promote to kids the concept of enjoying reading a book and having an adventure in a book; for me, that’s a big deal,” she says.

After almost four years, Baumgarten says her LFL is well-visited, both by people who choose books from the shelves, and people who drop off books. She takes inventory of the box about once a week. Thanks to the many book donations it receives, she rarely needs to replenish the shelves, which are usually filled with a variety of titles, from cookbooks to religious titles and lots of adult fiction. However, she says, children’s books are hard to keep in stock, so she occasionally supplements the stock with purchases from Goodwill.

Baumgarten says she enjoys watching people of all ages finding something they like in her library. She often catches sight of them from her window, but if she happens to be outside when they stop by, she says, “The conversations you’re going to have, it’s such a positive thing. It leads from one topic to another, and I think that creates a sense of unity among us. That’s so important these days.”

Mary Kay Fultz
‘Bailey’s Bibliotech’
Bellefonte

Mary Kay Fultz built and installed her own LFL—named “Bailey’s Bibliotech” in honor of her dog—at her Bellefonte home about seven years ago. Her library continues to draw frequent visitors and inspired a neighbor to build one of his own, she says.

Fultz has found the experience as a steward to be so rewarding that she incorporated LFLs into her work as regional vice president of Skills of Central PA , a nonprofit organization supporting individuals with behavioral health, intellectual or development challenges.

Several years ago, Fultz had some of the individuals in a Skills adult training program build an LFL in a Huntingdon workshop. Soon, she decided to grow from that idea, and Skills began receiving donations of books at its adult training facility on Benner Pike in State College. Individuals in the program use the donated books to help replenish the supplies in registered LFLs across Centre County on a weekly basis.

“It’s a great opportunity for the folks in our adult training service to give back to the community,” Fultz says. “I think a lot of people use the Little Free Libraries. I think it’s a great thing.”

She says there is currently an LFL in front of one of the Skills residential group homes in State College, and she eventually hopes to have one in front of every Skills group home in her region.

State College Rotary
Various locations in State College

State College Rotary is another organization that serves as an LFL steward.

According to board member Jeane Singer, the organization first used a community grant to buy and install six LFLs in 2015. The boxes were installed at Sidney Friedman Parklet, Millbrook Marsh, Holmes-Foster Park, Lederer Park, Orchard Park and Park Forest Elementary School. The organization has also worked with the high school’s Interact club to sponsor their efforts to install LFLs in other locations.

Before State College Rotary gained approval to install their first LFLs, Singer says she had to take one of the boxes to a State College Borough Council meeting to show them what they were.

“They were very new. We were really the first to put them up in public spaces here,” she says.

After nine years, Singer says the libraries are mostly self-sustaining, at least as far as the stock on the shelves. She still checks on them periodically and has noticed that different locations attract different kinds of reading materials: magazines at Orchard Park, religious books at Holmes-Foster Park and science and nature books at Millbrook Marsh.

The boxes require occasional maintenance, such as paint touch-ups, and unfortunately, they sometimes get vandalized and need to be repaired or cleaned up, she says.

Overall, Singer says, “It’s a wonderful program.” T&G

Karen Walker is a freelance writer in State College.

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