Congratulations on Little Free Library Number 50,000!

From 1 to 50,000

Steward #1 meets Steward #8424 (left)

Steward #1 meets Steward #8424 (left)

I had drinks last night with Little Free Library executive director Todd Bol (also Steward of Little Free Library Charter #1) and he said he was out visiting California for the dedication of Little Free Library Charter number 50,000 in Santa Ana today! You heard that right: 50,000!

Considering that I registered #8424 about two years ago now, this is humongous growth! Todd reported that it took about two years before he felt his own Little Free Library began to take off sometime in 2013 if I recall correctly. Mathematically this is the definition of exponential growth.

What’s even more impressive is that the best guess at Little Free Library Headquarters in Wisconsin is that approximately 10% of LFLs don’t officially register and have placards, so there are actually well in excess of 50,000.

Yesterday, the Little Free Library Twitter account made the official announcement and said they’d be doing a livestream on Facebook to celebrate the unveiling. Be sure to tune in today at noon Pacific.

Congratulations again to everyone involved in the Little Free Library movement on 50,000 and growing!!!

Got Little Free Library Envy? Start Here. | Little Free Library Blog

This week we were honored to be featured on the main Little Free Library Blog in a post entitled “Got Little Free Library Envy? Start Here.” as a source for publicity, social media and grand openings.

Little Free Library #8424 – this blog will share tried-and-true tips to get publicity for your Little Library. They cover everything from social media to grand opening tips to resources on our website that they like for reaching out to local media.

Our tiny hobby has come a long way in just six months. Thanks again to all our neighbors, patrons, donors, and friends who all help make the magic happen.

We’ve Cleared 100 Books in Our First Month!

Since our official (soft) opening on July 28th, we’ve had more than 100 books in or through our library!

Though we haven’t logged in every single book in the library — some of them come and go pretty fast — the ones we have tagged and shelved now come out to over 100.

Thanks again to all of our friends and neighbors for helping to make Little Free Library #8424 such a success!

My favorite read so far was Jared Diamond’s Collapse.  Which book has been your favorite from our library so far?

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!