An anonymous donor has dropped off 12 of the most interesting and diverse books this morning! Non-fiction fans will be particularly pleased.
Since there’s not much space in the library due to our new batch last week, we’ll start putting them out early next week as space becomes available. Thank You kind patron!
Fortunately, it’s not the case that Little Free Library #8424’s guest book has ever gone missing (though we have replaced the pen frequently), but I was reading through the LFL Steward’s Group on Facebook about what one might do to prevent a Guest Book from disappearing.
There were lots of interesting ideas and suggestions, none of which gave much hope other than to get a new cheap one and give it another try.
To help out other stewards, below I’ll present a few thoughts on something totally different and inexpensive/free that’s also a win-win from a publicity perspective.
Rather than having a physical guest book in your Little Free Library, why not use a social media version of a guest book?!
Put up a hashtag for your library and encourage users to take a selfie and post a note to their social media platform of choice (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) If you also include your social media accounts (if any) for your library, they can also tag you so you’ll get a notification about their online “guest book post.”
The benefit of this type of social media guest book is multi-fold:
As an example, I would encourage patrons of Little Free Library #8424 to use the hashtag #LFL8424 and tag @LFL8424 on Twitter (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) with a selfie of themselves, the library, and the book they took along with any note they want to leave.
The reach of their gracious post could also be expanded by the library’s account reposting/retweeting it, which also encourages others in the community to follow suit and participate. (If you have a personal account, you could also like/repost from that account as well as the library’s account.)
Social Media Pro Tips: If you use multiple platforms, try to get the same account name on all of them to make it easier to remember and use regardless of the patron’s platform of choice. Almost all social media sites use some form of hashtag, so just pick one for use everwhere regardless of the platform.
Not a social media ninja or know which sites you might want to use? Take a look at some of the platforms we support here for ideas: A Tiny Library with Its Own Social Media Empire.
Libraries could also use social media related ideas like this to do small contests or other giveaways. Perhaps a randomly chosen online post could be chosen monthly for a special give away, or a random post could be selected to choose the book genre/theme for your library’s next takeover?
Little Free Library Guest Book
Another simple, but related idea that we’ve been doing for a while is to feature photos from our traditional guest book on our blog. This way, even if the guest book disappeared, it wouldn’t be a total loss as we have a digital back up.
Do you have a guest book or encourage patrons to engage with your library on social media? I’d love to hear in the comments what you do to encourage participation.
In honor of the Declaration of Independence, what better way to celebrate than by reading?!
In fact, we’re reminded that Benjamin Franklin, the only Founding Father who is a signatory of all four of the major documents of the founding of the United States: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris and the United States Constitution, was also the inventor of the first subscription lending library!
While most libraries in America are closed today for the holiday, we wear it as a badge of honor and fREADom to be open all day for your reading pleasure.
For those who’d like to learn more about our hero Benjamin Franklin, we’re putting a brand new first edition of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Franklin into the library today.
Yesterday, our little free library had it’s first incoming phone call! (Our Google page has us on the map with operating hours and a phone number.) The female caller wanted to make sure we were open on the weekend before she stopped by.
A few minutes later we got another call asking for the library. It was a man who said he was on our street, but couldn’t see the library. Knowing that it’s rather small and not necessarily easy to see coming around the corner in a car, I stepped outside and both verbally and visually (I could see his car) directed him to where it was. As he pulled up, with the woman who turned out to be the first caller, she asked:
Do you have a photocopier?
I did my best not to laugh out loud and explained that we’re just a humble, free neighborhood library and our entire library is smaller than the average photocopier!
We chatted for a moment and I directed her to a few nearby libraries and some local business services that offer photocopying. I’m still chuckling about the experience today…
Thanks to the help and support of our extended community, we’re proud to announce that Little Free Library #8424 in Adams Hill has now had over 400 books donated to our neighborhood project!
When we started, I expected maybe 200 books in the first year, but with a month to go, we’ve done nearly double that. Nearly 20 donors have accounted for almost half of our volume, and to them we extend a huge thank you. But still the majority of donations come from every day users who simply “leave a book and take a book.” On behalf of all the users who’ve stopped by over the last year and given me their personal thanks or written in our Guest Book, I feel I must pass it back along to ALL of our users who really do the lion’s share of the work.
Keep in mind that this number is simply number of donations and doesn’t take into account overall circulation numbers of books coming back into the library, which, technically, because of the way we work are re-donations.
Any guesses on what the number will be when we hit our one year anniversary on July 28?
We’ve still got about 50 books in the library currently so be sure to stop by and pick up something to read for the long weekend.
