In Pursuit of Andrew Carnegie, One Little Free Library at a Time
By Michael Kelley Aug 4, 2011Rick Brooks and Todd Bol like to spend their weekends endowing and building libraries.
The Wisconsin pair want to top Andrew Carnegie, who built and endowed 2,509 libraries. The only difference is that the libraries Brooks and Bol construct are generally made of wood and Plexiglas, are about 24" x 24" x 30", and cost only about $350.
Brooks and Bol are the cofounders of the nonprofit Little Free Library. In 2009, they began fabricating and installing little libraries around Madison, WI. The libraries are essentially a nicely designed, weatherproof hutch mounted on poles, which contain a collection of about 20 books and a sign that reads "Take a Book, Leave a Book."
Literacy and a sense of community are the project's bedrock, and it has begun to take hold beyond Wisconsin.
"The primary motivation, without any doubt, is the good feeling that people get around these," said Brooks, who lives in Madison. "What made it happen was Tod had just built a little box in the shape of a schoolhouse as a memorial library to honor his mother. People would drive by his house and stop and say, 'What a cute idea,' " Brooks said.
About a week after finishing the first structure, Bol had a garage sale that wasn't very successful, but everyone was drawn to the little library. "I called up Rick and said, "People really want this,' " Bol said.
"It was really interesting that it was a cross section of the populace," Bol said. "It was like a literary water cooler, where people gathered and had a discussion about books in a way they wouldn't have had if they had just met on the street," he said.
Brooks, who had helped organize the building of 12 village libraries in Sri Lanka through his work with Sarvodaya USA, understood what a difference a small investment can make in a neighborhood.
"We have many individual families who just bought them and put them in their yard," Brooks said. "We like neighborhoods to get together and develop a sense of ownership."
Brooks also knew, like many, that he had books at home that he didn't need.
"I thought, 'What are they doing on my bookshelves? Why don't we share them,'" he said. "Everybody asks, 'Aren't they going to steal the books?' But you can't steal a free book."
Each library has a steward who signs a contract to oversee and maintain the book collection, and one of the first stewards was Megan Blake-Horst, the owner of Absolutely Art Gallery in Madison, who, about a year and a half ago, installed a little library on a bike trail that runs next to her gallery.
"I really love the idea of sharing books," she said. "Instantly, we had people stopping and looking at it and using it." Blake-Horst's gallery has now become the only retail outlet for the libraries (all other sales are via the website).
Bol initially built 20 libraries, and Brooks marketed them, and as the idea gained traction, the duo enlisted help from an Amish carpenter in Cashton who supplied wood from a barn that had been knocked down in a tornado as well as assistance from WDI, a local woodworking firm.
They now have installed about 50 libraries (more than 20 in the Madison area), and 30 more are being built (a July 31 article in the Wisconsin State Journal has provided a spur). To date, Brooks and company have installed all the libraries, but this may no longer be practical as the project has gained momentum across Wisconsin and in other states.
For example, Bol and Brooks recently applied for a grant from the Chicago chapter of The Awesome Foundation, a new group which awards a $1000 grant every month to a small-scale project that larger foundations might not notice but that, nevertheless, makes people sit up and say, "Holy crap, that's awesome," according to the website.
On July 30, the foundation's Chicago chapter presented its first grant to the Little Free Library, which was selected from about 200 applications. The money will pay for six little libraries across Chicago.
"We drove to Chicago with a dozen projects and let [the steward] pick the six that they want to install," Bol said.
The Blacks in Green will act as the steward in Chicago and decide where to place the libraries. Blacks in Green is "a thought leader in green community education and trade development for communities of color," according to its website.
"It's just really great to see these grassroots groups [look at] these libraries as a connector," Brooks said.
Brooks and Bol have had a number of meetings with Wisconsin Literacy Inc., which supports 60 literary councils throughout the state.
"I think [the little library] has a lot of potential to grow and spread the love of reading," said Michele Erikson, the executive director. "What I think is most exciting is it brings the community together around reading, which is the core of what we do, and it gets us back to that face-to-face discussion when everything else is so electronic nowadays," she said.
The Portage County Literacy Council in Stevens Point is going to install a Little Free Library in September.
Brooks and Bol are also talking with the North Shore-LIJ Health System on Long Island, NY, about installing libraries there as well.
Every library receives a charter number, and Brooks hopes to keep track of all the libraries online via GPS. The money collected helps support the project as well as library programs in developing countries. Brooks and Bol also have set up the Pay It Forward fund for donations to help defray the expense of setting up a library in a disadvantaged area. In June, The Kids Fund of the Madison Capital Times awarded the first grant ($2000) to the fund to provide at least five libraries to community groups in Dane County.
"At a personal, human level, it's very thrilling how it excites people," Bol said. "But on a larger plane, it's such a nice spark for literacy, art, and community all at once," he said.
