Bookplates, boomerangs, and magazines – Oh My!

Bookplates

Our custom book plates arrived today!

Now it’s much easier to register books on Book Crossing and give them their own unique BCID’s. We’ve added them to the 12 books currently in our collection as well as the many books we’re getting ready for our Grand Opening this coming Sunday.

Patrons can enter the BCID numbers from the bookplates to see where the book has been before them.  They can also enter in their ratings, reviews, and comments before re-releasing them back to our library or passing them along to other Little Free Libraries or friends.

Little Free Library #8424 Bookplate

Little Free Library #8424 Bookplate

Our First Boomerang

Our very first outside donation, has “boomeranged” back to us. While we don’t always necessarily expect our books to come back to our branch, it’s great to know that they’re being read and appreciated instead of sitting on our shelves just looking pretty. The accompanying note in our guest book on the return was:

“Thank you so much for the great books. They are really appreciated.”

Magazines

We’d also like to note that one of our neighbors up the hill donated a handful of magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, and Rolling Stone among many others. While we would typically discourage the donation of magazines, these are all popular issues that are current within the last few weeks.

Bookshelf Updated

Our current offerings have been updated on our Good Reads bookshelf.

Excitement and The McAllistar Family

So excited to see a FLL in the neighborhood.
Thank you! Will visit often ❤

8/6/15: The McAllistar Family is so happy to have a little library on our street. Thank you so much for building it!

8-6-15

First Entry in Our Guestbook

“We love Book Crossing and Little Free Libraries, so thanks for doing this! We’ll be back! Have a happy day!”

-D&L

Big Changes over the Weekend

I still have yet to do any kind of publicity for my newly launched Little Free Library, but while I was away at the beach for the weekend, there were some substantive changes.

Over the weekend we’ve loaned out

And we’ve gotten three new donations overnight

The updated list of our current stock can be found on our GoodReads shelf.

Guest Book

We’ve added a guest book for our visitors. You’ll find a red composition book (and pen) inside our library where you can leave your thoughts and comments. Kindly leave the guest book in the library – it’s the one book we have that doesn’t circulate!

In some part the guest book is meant to help catalog the progress of our library. Below are some suggestions for what you might write into our guest book when you visit:

  • Patrons/Associate Librarians are encouraged to (optionally) write in the books they donate or check out.
  • Say hello to your fellow neighbors! You can simply write down the day and time of your visit along with a note for future visitors.
  • Bringing back a book? Feel free to write in a short review of the book you’re returning so others will know what they’re getting into. (If you give it a number of stars, be sure to indicate out of how many possible, so we know your scale.)
  • Liked a book you borrowed? Flip back into the guest book to see who made the donation and write in a thank you to the donor.
  • Have a book you’ve been longing for? Write it in and maybe a fellow neighbor has a copy they can donate on a future visit.
  • Visiting our branch from far away? Be sure to write down your hometown and country  so we know how far away our books travel.
Little Free Library Guest Book

Little Free Library Guest Book

Little Free Library #8424 is Open

What is a Little Free Library?

It’s a “take a book, return a book” gathering place where neighbors share their favorite literature and stories. In its most basic form, a Little Free Library is a box full of books where anyone may stop by and pick up a book (or two) and bring back another book to share. You can, too!

If you want to learn more about the movement or host your own Little Free Library, please visit their website.

Location

Little Free Library Charter #8424 is located at 1411 Dartmouth Drive, Glendale, CA 91205. It is located at the dog-leg on Dartmouth on the west side of the street. It is just west of S. Adams Street, roughly at the top of the hill.

A library with a view of the mountains

A library with a view of the mountains

Our Library Philosophy

Though Chris built and hosts the library, he’s simply a steward or caretaker, of the branch. The library is free and open for the use of our friends and neighbors in Adams Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods. If you’ve stopped to check things out, you’re automatically an associate librarian. It is appreciated if everyone helps to care for and maintain the library.

General Suggestions

  • The books in our library are always free and never for sale.
  • Feel free to take a book.
  • If you have a book you’d like to share, please feel free to donate it.
  • When you’re done with your book: return it, pass it along to a friend, or release it back into the wild.
  • You don’t need to “check the book out” or “check it in”, but we do encourage you to sign our guest book and participate via Book Crossing [see below].

Arrangement of Books

Since there isn’t a full time librarian and only so much space, there isn’t (usually) a set order to the arrangement of our books. Since it’s been a long trip up the hill, feel free to stop for a minute to cool off, consider yourself an associate librarian, and rearrange them to suit your whimsy – it is your library after all. We only ask that you try to keep any children’s books on the lower shelf for short legs and arms to be able to reach, and that your arrangement ensures all the books fit into the library just in case it rains.

Possible suggestions for arrangements might include:

  • by size
  • by color
  • by the order in which you’ve read them
  • by author’s first name
  • by publication date
  • by publisher or imprint
  • by topic in reverse alphabetic order
  • by best to worst (in your opinion or someone else’s)
  • by those you’ve read and those you haven’t

The options are infinite, so be creative.

Book Crossing

All of our books in the Adams Hill Branch are “traveling” books. We try to register all of them on Book Crossing. This is a free web service for watching the journey of individual books as they meander about the world. If you’d like to, you can enter the BCID number inside the front of the book to see where it’s been and even where it goes after you’ve read it. You can also enter any data, thoughts, reviews, etc. for the book on your own, as well as create a note about where you re-released it. (Note that we don’t expect all of our books to necessarily come back to our branch, but we do ask that you pass them along when you’re done with them.)

Pending people updating the location of books removed, check availability at our Book Crossing Zone.

Donating Books

We gladly accept your donated books.

If you have more books than the little library will fit, please don’t simply dump them! You can leave them in a covered box preferably on our stairs/landing – this will keep our sprinklers and elements from ruining them or you can contact me through Nextdoor.com. If the library has more books than will fit, we’ll occasionally rotate them to help improve the diversity of the available collection over time.

If you’d like to, please write the titles of your donations into our guest book as this will help us to register them on Book Crossing. (You’re welcome to register them on book crossing yourself prior to donation as well.)

Guest Book

Our library has guest book and a pen.  Feel free to write down any thoughts, comments, or suggestions you might have about the library and leave them in the library for the associate librarians who happen by. Or maybe you were waxing poetic when you stopped by and wanted to leave a short poem or haiku about our library? Really liked a book? Feel free to leave a short review for the next potential reader. Donating a book: feel free to include the title and your name so others can thank you later.

Wish List

Our wish list has two functions:

  1. Write down any books you’d love to see come to our library so you can borrow them in the future.
  2. Read the list to see if you have any of the books you might donate so that others can enjoy them.

Fliers

We’re happy to host fliers/notices only for local community events.  The library is constructed of metal, so use a magnet (no tape, staples, glue, or permanent adhesives please) to attach your notice to the library. We ask that any fliers have a specific event date/time so that they may be easily removed once they’re over.  We also recommend posting on the community site Nextdoor. If you’re visiting from outside Adams Hill, try this link for a $25 Amazon.com gift card.

Please don’t leave any promotional/advertising items, business cards, or proselytizing material here as they will be removed. There are more effective places you can place these items.

Thanks for Visiting!