Little Free Library | Hacker News Reader

Little Free Library

littlefreelibrary.org

117 pointsTomte86 comments

We have a Little Free Library (https://www.instagram.com/paintedladieslibrary/) that we painted/decorated to look like our house using a laser cutter and a lot of wood glue to mimic the decorative woodwork. Recently I installed a door sensor connected to a Raspberry Pi to collect analytics on how often people open it and how long they browse for. In the past week, it has been opened around 200 times with an average browse time of just over a minute.

I hate to be this person, but is there a non-Instagram link? They’ve recently cut down/eliminated access by non-account holders.

I am also "this person", and while it feels awkward to ask, I think it's important to provide at least some social pressure against the adtech megaplatforms. (Similarly, I feel that it is completely acceptable to ask for a .txt, pastebin, or archive link whenever someone posts a medium.com link.)

I love HN because sometimes the person you’re putting social pressure on is a co-founder of the megaplatform you’re pushing back against.

Ha, yes — I haven't been at Facebook since well before they acquired Instagram, but you're right to note a certain amount of irony in the situation! Of course, I don't mind the comment, and happy to post another way to see what we did with the project!

I'm sure it happens often, but only they know what's just happened.

I recently discovered Bibliogram: https://bibliogram.art/u/paintedladieslibrary

Thank you, this is a great tool!

There's also the FOSS app Barinsta available on Fdroid.

https://github.com/austinhuang0131/barinsta

There is no shame in being "that person".

not that its hard but just a reminder that its easier than ever to set up a static html page for this sort of thing on github pages or just stick images in a repos readme, and surprisingly easy to update it automatically from a folder (or webscraped iCloud photo album set to "public") with a tiny script that also automates IG posts if you want to support people both on and off socmedia - speaking of which anyone have opinions on instapy?

Or use Neocities: https://neocities.org/

Yeah, totally, there are some pictures of the process and the final result here:

https://community.glowforge.com/t/little-painted-lady-little...

It shows some of the design elements, too, so maybe folks would be interested in that. I haven't written up anything about the door sensor part, but that was pretty basic, and mostly an excuse to learn about using the Raspberry Pi.

We put one in our yard, and it gets a ton of use. During the spring of 2020 when nobody was able to go anywhere at all because of lockdown (walking around was still permitted in our town), we actually had to put a call out for more books because the neighborhood had burned through the entire stock we had in our garage. I really like having it, and I think our neighbors do too.

There are four nearby my place. I've put books in all of them, and they'll sit (along with the others) for months.

The local thrift store used to have a very large book section. I noticed that most of the books sat there for months on end. Eventually, the store just boiled it down to a tiny 10x10 section. I'm sure most of the titles went to the dump.

The company is a little bit litigious in a weird way, but I like the idea. Just needs more of an open brand instead of some over-domineering steward imho: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/that-litt... https://littlefreelibrary.org/letter-from-the-executive-dire...

While I trust the journalists at Wapo and trust that little free library is too litigious, Bezos owns Wapo and probably hates people giving away stuff just for… free???

Yes I'm sure bezos intervened in the news room because he thinks the little free library folks are damn commies

Have you been keeping up with the Senate Inquiry into Media Diversity in Australia? It's amazing how petty media proprietors can be.

Are you suggesting that Bezos operates the Washington Post like Rupert Murdoch operates his media empire?

I'm not commenting at all on what Bezos does or doesn't do. I'm just saying that acting in this way is not implausible.

Just want to chime in that where I live in Portland Oregon, these are common enough in my neighborhood you'll find one every few blocks. It's a small but neat thing. People really do enjoy this, and interestingly to me, the vandal folks don't tend to mess with them much.

I built one for a small neighborhood I no longer live in Beaverton like 7 or 8 years ago. (Can't find the pictures)

I've seen a lot of these pop up in various neighborhoods over the years. It's a cute concept, but most of the what I see in them are things that nobody has any interest in and would be better off just being recycled. Old manuals for MS Word 1997, crappy romance novels, water damaged cook books from the 80s, etc.

Sounds like what happens to any “leave one to take one” book box over time. You really need to reset them with good books from time to time.

It's the same around me, but I think that's due to the survivor effect. Just last week I needed to make space on in my bookcase, so I dropped about a dozen novels in the little libraries around the neighborhood. By the next day, half the books had been taken and a few days later, they were all gone. If their main purpose is to help books find new homes, then they seem to be very effective.

Yeah, but my guess is the people who took your old books will probably not actually read them and then will donate them somewhere else in the future.

We have an aversion to throwing out books out of principle, but sometimes you just have to admit that a book is worthless and perfectly fine to throw out.

Luckily we don't have to admit that when somebody else wants the things that we were throwing out. Let them get a chance to admit it. Pass that chance down the line until the book ends up in the landfill. We all end up in the landfill eventually, there's no hurry.

Not sure about you but the one in my neighborhood usually has 1-2 books which are classic/bestseller. I always peek into the shelf to see what books interest me and over the last few months I've seen sci-fi classics from Neal Stephenson to William Gibson etc.

Romance is generally the best selling genre, so it seems off to claim that they're something that "nobody has any interest in" – are you sure you aren't projecting that on the basis that _you_ don't have any interest in them?

Related past threads:

Little Free Library - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20637291 - Aug 2019 (2 comments)

Little Free Pantry - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224309 - June 2019 (54 comments) - might as well include this one

Against Little Free Libraries (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19700204 - April 2019 (59 comments)

RIP Todd Bol, Inventor of ‘Little Free Libraries’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18286738 - Oct 2018 (33 comments)

Against Little Free Libraries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14282076 - May 2017 (1 comment)

An enclosure to house books outside your house, borrow or leave a book for free - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10206407 - Sept 2015 (1 comment)

The Danger of Being Neighborly Without a Permit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9089716 - Feb 2015 (1 comment)

Little Free Library - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8237696 - Aug 2014 (32 comments)

I live in Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood of Washington, D.C. and there are more than a dozen of these in walking distance. The selection is extremely good, and it helps me avoid hoarding books I'm not going to return to in the near future.

Hi neighbor. I've actually noticed the quality improve substantially over the past few years. They've gone from just being dumping grounds for old GMAT prep books and law school textbooks to having fairly current stuff that one might actually want to read.

Have never set one up, but I've considered that you probably need to prune them from time to time to avoid just such a (GMAT) situation.

I once found a little free library on Google maps in SF which was open late. I thought great, a new place to do some coding this evening. Disappointed to find a cupboard in the suburbs.

Is it just me, or are these densest in the places that nobody's probably hurting for access to books in the first place?

That doesn't make them harmful, of course, just.... weirdly pointless, as far as I can tell. Couple that with the "someone cleaned out their garage" selection of books that others have observed, and I guess I just don't see what problem these solve.

This is how it is in my current city. I only see them in wealthy neighborhoods and the selection is always terrible. In poorer neighborhoods they're usually empty or half full of charitable food items.

We try to dontate our books to the poorer neighborhoods. The poor are less able to afford books, but need them as much. I've even taken loads from a stuffed one to an empty one.

Yessss, the "rebalancing" of collections... :)

I never saw them as trying to solve a problem. It's just a nice little thing to make your neighborhood cozier.

There are several Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood - all of them are well done and decorated attractively.

A few months ago I noticed that one of them had a JavaScript book in it (alongside other horror books).

Wow, the consistency here is amazing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=littlefreelibrary.org

I think they might be a bot or they have some system for reposting content.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Why%20a%20Baker’s%20Dozen%20is...

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Daily%20life%20in%20a%20federa...

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=governmentisgood.com

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=The%20Trouble%20with%20Teachin...

I asked the user about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26776960

Dang didn't seem to mind. <shrug>

I get the impression that some prolific users repeatedly post content that the site isn't very interested in until it finally takes the bait so as to earn magic internet points ('This account is valuable to HN!') as a cover for posting divisive content. There are also groups of accounts who appear to accomplish this by sharing reposting duties.

Tomte use to post a lot of good old stuff. I didn't notice s/he is reposting because the frequency is very low (6 months?) and not too many posts.

Also, it's generally interesting stuff, that raise the bar before I complain.

Edit: * and from a lot of different sources

Reposts are ok after a year or so: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html, as I explained before. Using a bot to submit would not be ok, but I don't think Tomte's doing that. As for "cover for posting divisive content" - if you think someone is abusing HN, please let us know at hn@ycombinator.com (as the site guidelines ask), and please don't make insinuations about it in the threads (as the guidelines also ask). We need to deal with abuse on the basis of evidence, not insinuation, and certainly not imagination, which such perceptions often turn out to be.

To be fair, it never really got picked up so it's worth trying again and again.

There are a ton of these all over my neighborhood in Seattle and even though I don't use them, I love that they are there. It adds a bit of warmth to the area and I love just peeking in to see what each little library has available.

Our free little library has been fascinating: we get far more books that we give out. To the point that, like a rug merchant, we get to pick really great books out, stock the library box with top titles, destroy the bad ones (I had no idea Fox News celebrities generated so many books), and take the rest to Goodwill.

-- destroy the bad ones

A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon.

I'm a big fan and user of my local Big Free Library™. I see these Little Free Libraries all over the place in affluent neighbourhoods and they baffle me. If you want to promote literacy your effort is better spent helping the existing library system, which is better in pretty much every way.

The big library is over 1 hour and a transfer by bus. The local little free library is walking distance. Guess which my kids can actually get to and use regularly.

The fact that it has "library" in the name doesn't mean it's meant to be a replacement for a public library. It's just a book swap with weather protection for the books. It doesn't detract from or compete with public libraries. People just like swapping books.

Fun tangential anecdote:

In the Bahamas many of the island marinas will have a cardboard box tucked away somewhere full of books referred to as the "Cruiser's Library". People sailing from island to island use them in the same way as these Little Free Libraries and have been for decades.

Once I was exploring an uninhabited island somewhere in the Abacos island chain. The only thing on this island was the ruins of an old resort that has been destroyed by a hurricane 10 years earlier. In the middle of the largest ruined building where the remains of the roof still kept off most of the damp I found a table with a pile of these books, the local Cruiser's Library.

We bought one a few weeks ago and have been assembling and painting on weekends. Fun little project and looking forward to installing it. There are a few in the greater neighborhood already and they get a lot of use.

I saw these outside in 2 suburban towns and a lot in Boston. I had no idea there was a website and map and there's about 20 of them in the town where I am right now.

I'm surprised to see reports that this concept works for some people. We have a bunch around the Bay Area, and they are inevitably full of garbage books that their owners weren't comfortable trashing. They're not really books they expect you to read, just books they want out of the house. You put semi-possibly-usable trash on the curb, you put trash books into the Little Free Library.

then borrow those books and throw them out :) Fix the system by creating space for better books. (Though be careful this isn't just you not enjoying certain books others love -- if that's the case, then you might tread into "that asshole" territory :) )

Or donate books that you think are worthwhile.

The box is usually stuffed pretty full of unwanted books. And I really don't want the responsibility of policing what books end up in those things. If they're full of trash, they're full of trash.

You don’t have to police anything. You can just participate.

Heh, or even just borrow them to confirm how bad they are as you stuff your own in. What you do with them after (once you take them home and confirm their shittiness) if up to you, karma-free :)

The little Hungarian town I live in Diósd, has one. It's on a tiny street (most are in the town I guess) and a bit out of the way, I'd love to know how frequently it's used. I've never seen one in the US but it strikes me as a great idea.

I think more than just the purpose it fills on its own, it's part of a larger set of community resources that make this a nicer place to live. There are places to get and deposit bags for picking up dog poop. There are cute signs that go with them. There are signs made by local school kids about slowing down around crosswalks, and flags for them to carry as they cross the street - so they are more visible. (There aren't too many of those as most streets in town are really small as I've said.)

We're a near suburb of Budapest and probably on the upper end of the socio-economic scale but I still think it brings up some great ideas of how to build a great community.

There are a bunch of these in my neighborhood. They're a great excuse to go out for a walk. During Covid times one of them was converted to provide "free supplies" of hand sanitizer and disposable masks.

The map is neat but I also enjoy stumbling across them while exploring the area.

We found the tomb of every ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ story last fall. My two year old loves it still.

Yes but have you heard of the original free library, i think it's called the library????

Yeah, libraries are great an all, but wouldn't you rather they be the size of a mailbox and full of junk?

They keep getting shut down because they cost money to run.

We got a bunch of those are the neighborhood. They are marked as "closed due to COVID", but books and mags are still exchanged as theyvare not locked. They are a great thing to have around.

Sucks that people in your neighborhood still think surface transmission is a thing almost a year after we discovered it isn't.

I used to make it a policy to only read books I found in little free libraries, regardless of reviews...

I kinda got burned out on it, after I noticed the same books nobody wanted to touch, that someone cleaned out of their garage. Bad romance novels, etc. I feel like it needs some TLC and even a bit of evangelism to work well. I wish someone would come through and clean out / recycle books that have been in the same library for a long time...

I almost want to ONLY put interesting books in myself... and recycle everything else.

Anecdotally, I've heard talk that some librarians are critical of the word "library" in these projects. They point out that librarians are trained specialists with expertise in several areas.

I've no idea how widespread this feeling is, having only heard of it casual conversation, but I thought it was an interesting counterpoint.

This is ridiculous. Wait till they see how I manage my utility functions.

Sure, but mostly they have destroyed the reason for a library by giving so much space to non library functions.

See, I can have an opinion too.

In Berkeley there is one each 2 or 3 blocks. For me, from 10 or 20 books, there is 1 that is worth reading.

Such a great concept. Community building by sharing books and promoting the habit of reading books. Love it.

The site doesn't appear to be getting much use, there is one little free library in my neighbourhood and as others have mentioned here in their neighbourhoods as well, but the sites search engine isn't picking these up.

To make sure things are fresh. What I do is take books I've seen in a box for the last few months and I move them to other boxes.

We have 3 of those in our neighborhood. And another 2 that are for sharing food.

Every year for so many years and this one got some upvotes eh? What gives

I don't want to be a grinch - I like the idea of sharing books and building community - but what are the odds that I'll find a/the book I want to read next? Maybe I'm just more choosy than most, but I'll read very few books in my lifetime and so that list is very exclusive. I am not looking for random books.

Edits:

Food? Kitchen supplies? Tools?!! How about cabinets that share anything: Whatever is functional and safe, that you don't need or are willing to share, put in your cabinet. A clear door will make the contents discoverable. Maybe an optional website where you can list contents online, making them searchable.

Or ... a website where you simply list what you are willing to share, a sort of Craigslist for sharing (and giveaways).[0] Neighbors search, find your thing, contact you, and stop by to pick it up. It would scale up well and be very efficient.

[0] Sorry, maybe I should say 'an Uber or Airbnb for your stuff'.

> I am not looking for random books

Then you are not the target demographic. That doesn't make it a bad idea.

Who said it was a bad idea?

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