Little Free Libraries

Since I got to Illinois, I have become fascinated by little free libraries. These are free-standing boxes that people fill with books; they have two or three shelves in them, and maybe a see-through door; people are encouraged to bring books and take them at will. The question is: do people use them? It's an interesting question.

I have very weak paperback ratings; nobody buys my paperbacks except my own family, and not even them usually (excuse my casual syntax). So I was thinking, maybe I should make more of an effort to get my books out to the market by putting some in little free libraries. An aggressive campaign to get them out there. But it wouldn't much do to put them out there if in fact nobody's reading them. I need to study the market, obviously.

A few years back, maybe ten, the Rotary took up the cause in this town (Galesburg, Illinois), and put up a number of them. Of those, I have found three or four. Only one appears on the LFL guide; that one is just up the street. One a street over is in disrepair; its door is hard to open. I found one in a park about four blocks away and I read about one in a park downtown. Finally, I saw one way over on the east side on my way out to the interstate, going to Peoria. So, five altogether that I know of, only one on the official register.

They also have them in Monmouth, a small town near here, where, while I lived there, I found about five. Small towns I would think would be better because that's where people have time and get bored, and kids grow up reading in the absence of trouble to get into. Most of the spare books I have sitting around are haiku; I was never able to get anyone to buy them either, and I think if I scatter them in these libraries they will most likely just sit there. But that's ok; I'm getting more story books to distribute as time goes by, and all my books get new covers, so my plan is to systematically get books out into the LFL's, and in return bring home some books to study. I also have a houseful of books that I've never thrown away, and even moved this far, yet nobody reads; these are not by me, but might be useful in some LFL or another.

I know they had them in New Mexico; I know they were a national phenomenon. What I don't know is how much of an active system they represent. Do people actually notice or see what's in them? I actually saw someone using the one on my street the other day; they had a subaru-type vehicle, they walked up to it with a few books, and walked back with a few more. When I walked past it today, my own book was in a visible place (I had tucked it in among other books, but somebody had apparently at least looked at it). I'm not sure what to think of this.

The point I think would be to be well-equipped when I travel, and willing to take the time to find them and stock them wherever I go. I have always been a bit shy about giving them away. But having new covers on some of them actually gives me others that I won't sell anymore, won't even try. I am experimenting with covers and therefore rendering lots of the books in my possession obsolete.

Some authors would never stoop to giving books away when they intend to make money on the whole deal, and need to keep up an image of being of high value. I have the opposite approach, more like Andy Warhol. I figure, on some level, many people have to know who you are before you get anywhere at all. You have to blanket the world, if only by starting in this little corner of western Illinois. If this system of little libraries scattered around towns like Galesburg or Monmouth is any indication, people still read books enough to have them out in their front yards in little house-shaped boxes. I'm not sure it really means anything at all; lots of them are in poor repair; some don't seem to have any books anymore. But some, I think, are being used and used well.

People I think enjoyed the no-due-date aspect of it. You could read part of a book and just sit on it for a while. Has this been going on for years? I'd like to meet people who are into actively transfering books. I'm also curious about the quality of books in them. I found stories by Kafka in one here in Galesburg - is that because of the college? Are there people who are trading Kafka for steamier fare?

What you see here is me developing hypotheses about ways to market. Any progress is real progress, no matter how incremental. I left my book on the top of its little stack - and will check on it in a day or two, maybe add some stories to that one. I have books of stories, that are just sitting there, making my moving harder. There was no reason to hang on to the books I did hang on to, and even less reason as time goes by.

Out of a total of thousands of readers, only a fraction will read, then finish, then like your books - and only a fraction of those will pick up another one you wrote. I'm not sure if it's ok to drop off older, outdated, or even imperfect (older version) books when that would just decrease, presumably, my odds. But this is a town where I can at least observe LFL customer behavior and see whether it's worth my time at all. My strategy (small towns are better) may or may not be misguided. But my travel plans will not be based on it anyway. I'll only be hitting the LFL's in the towns where I'm going anyway.