You’re about to hit the road for a weeklong beach vacation, but you forgot to get a book. It’s only 6 a.m. and the library doesn’t open for a few more hours. And you don’t want to pay hundreds for a single book or magazine at the airport, so what are you supposed to do?
Why not just go to White or Rollins parks, or hit up the Marjory Swope Trail?
While this may sound useless if not straight up counterproductive, it’s actually a work of genius – Concord Public Library, with the help of Eagle Scout Cole Beauchemin, has set up six Little Free Public Libraries in parks and trails around Concord. (These mini libraries are not registered with the national Little Free Library organization.)
If you don’t know what these little libraries are, then you haven’t been paying attention – we did a big story on this phenomenon months ago. If you didn’t catch it, that’s okay, we’ll fill you in.
These things are exactly what the name implies: little, free libraries. You show up, take a book or two, keep it for as long as you want, then return it and repeat. There are several of these on private property throughout the city – mostly on people’s front lawns – but now there are six more out in public places, installed over the summer with the most recent one going in a couple weeks ago.
Apart from the three previously mentioned, there are little libraries at Rolfe and Keach parks and Oak Hill Trail.
“We picked six spots spread out throughout the community,” said Todd Fabian, director of Concord Public Library. The goal is to reach as many people as possible, and these spots all have good foot traffic and appeal to a variety of ages, he said.
The library stocks the little libraries with donated books – so it’s at no cost to anybody, essentially. Someone from the library will go and check on a site every now and then just to see how it’s doing, but these sites generally aren’t and won’t be closely monitored, Fabian said.
“We don’t track these,” he said. “It’s just a community service and a way to promote reading.”
It all began when Beauchemin reached out to the library looking for an Eagle Scout project. The library regularly works with Scouts on various projects, so Fabian welcomed the idea of putting in some little free libraries when Beauchemin pitched it.
“And we had this idea for awhile,” he said, so it was kind of a perfect opportunity.
Beauchemin did most of the work himself – he designed, fundraised and built all the structures and did all the digging to install them. He also cemented them all into the ground, so you know these things are sturdy.
The beauty of these open-air libraries is that they’re kind of always open. Sure, the selection is limited, but that’s part of the fun – you never know what you’ll find.
If you feel like checking any of these out (like that library joke?), feel free to bring some of your old books to contribute.
