Tiny Librarian Life

Or notes on joining and building a community.

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Welcome to a bonus post!

One of my favourite things to do when travelling or simply out for my daily walk is seek out the local area’s Little Free Library. I first glimpsed some in Japan, then in my best friend’s village bus stop, another at a disused telephone box… Before I knew it, I was hankering to steward one of my own, since my hometown didn’t have an official one and we don’t have a bookshop either. (I know. Criminal.)

It was in August 2023 that I first decided to take this little thought more seriously. Since our town doesn’t have a dedicated bookshop, it must be more difficult for readers – and non-readers! – to easily access books. Moreover, with the Cost of Living crisis running rampant, not only is it more difficult to access books in general, it must be trickier for children to access books.

So, I decided to do a little research into the Little Free Library scheme…

About Little Free Library

Little Free Library is a not-for-profit scheme based in the US. Stewards can look after a LFL of their own and add it to the map, and the whole idea is community-driven: take a book and leave a book, a free book-sharing situation. Over in the US, stewards often have them outside their houses and can take part in book hops, where LFL distributes books across the network.

It’s a little different in the UK and, while I really wanted to be a tiny librarian, I didn’t fancy setting one up at my address, for privacy reasons. Instead, I wanted to place one at my favourite park in town.

The process

The first step was to contact our local council to see whether this was possible. I emailed a few people that sounded as though they could help: anybody to do with the parks, community and youth programmes. In my email, I outlined the project, included a link to Little Free Library’s website, and my reasons (wanting to share books with many people, and to bring books to young people as the park neighbours three schools).

Next, the councillors came back to me with a positive response. The only catch was that I’d need to fundraise my project. I drew up the costs, and rallied amongst the council members to raise money for the library from each councillor’s pot of cash. This took a good few weeks of following up, but it was really positively received and I actually really enjoyed meeting with each councillor to talk about my ‘why’ and learn about what they did too.

Finally, it was down to the council to mount my Little Free Library. Here she is on her first day in the public in May 2024!

How it feels to be a steward

Being a Little Free Library steward is unbelievably rewarding and I’m so proud of myself for committing to doing this all those months ago. I typically visit it once or twice a week to check out what’s in there – I remove anything inappropriate – and my main to-do’s are to post regularly on our Instagram account, and design free bookmarks for readers to take with them. It’s really lovely to see the Little Free Library being so well-loved and used by locals, and I’ve heard that the councillors are hankering for some budget to set up more across the town. I just love being a tiny librarian: I get to curate little bookish edits, ‘un-haul’ books from my own collection, and discover new-to-me books as well.

Plus, it feels so rewarding to be actively contributing to our local community and town. Kids’ books fly off the shelves, bookmarks need topping up constantly, and it’s great to be in touch with our local councillors – I already can’t wait to pitch another project! (I’m thinking about something to do with rewilding and sustainability.)

Do you have a Little Free Library near you? Find out more about the initiative here.