Little Libraries, Big Connections: Sharing Books Across Piedmont
Last Wednesday was the warmest day of the week, but that wasn’t an issue for our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays walkers. We had a large turnout of 51 walkers and six K-9 best friends at the Exedra for our weekly walk on this first full day of fall.
Since July different walkers have taken more of the lead in conducting the walks and the creativity and varied interests of walkers have been on display. Last Wednesday was another example of this. June Y decided to take us to visit four little sidewalk book libraries that are around town in a 2.3 mile loop of beautiful Piedmont streets. Attached is the map of June’s route. It was suggested that walkers could bring a book to share or swap with a library. Lois P has been building an ADU and wanted to downsize her library, so she brought a large bag of books to unload.
June started the morning with some background information and history about sidewalk book libraries. These are small boxes or cabinets where people can take a book for free and often leave another one. This is a surprisingly recent phenomenon in its modern form, although it has roots in much older ideas about free public reading.
During the late 19th and 20th centuries, there was a strong movement to make books available to people regardless of their income. Andrew Carnegie founded Carnegie Steel Company, which became U.S. Steel, and used his fortune to fund thousands of free public libraries in the United States and other English-speaking countries. In fact, there are Bay Area public libraries, like the Oakland Temescal Branch, that are Carnegie libraries and most have a similar look. The founders of today's Little Free Library movement cited Carnegie as an inspiration.
There were some interesting European predecessors to this modern "book box" idea. In Germany, artist-created public bookcases appeared in the 1990s. In 2002, German designer Trixy Royeck developed the idea of an outdoor book exchange while studying interior design. These projects were closer to today's sidewalk libraries than traditional public libraries because books could be taken and exchanged informally and anonymously.
In 2009, Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, built a little wooden structure resembling a one-room schoolhouse. He filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard as a tribute to his mother, a schoolteacher who loved books. People were captivated by Bol’s idea and the concept of sidewalk book libraries exploded in the United States. Bol and community-development educator Rick Brooks began giving the structures away and promoting the concept as "Little Free Libraries." Their initial goal was to have 2,510 Little Free Libraries, one more than the number of Carnegie libraries. They reached that goal in August 2012, much earlier than anticipated, with more than 4,000 and their nonprofit became a 501(c)(3) charity.
Since then the growth of these libraries has been extraordinary. By 2016 50,000 had been created in all 50 states and 70 countries, and by 2025 there were more than 200,000 registered libraries in 128 countries and all seven continents. The organization says more than 400 million books have now been shared through its network.
It’s worth noting that not every sidewalk book box is technically a Little Free Library. "Little Free Library" is the name of the nonprofit. There are also thousands of independent free libraries, sidewalk libraries, book exchanges, and community book boxes that aren't registered with Little Free Library. However, for all of them, the underlying idea is essentially the same: take a book, leave a book, share a book. Almost anyone can create one of these libraries, there is no membership requirement, no checkout procedure, no due date, and usually no expectation that the person taking a book will return the same book.
With a new understanding of little sidewalk book libraries, June led us off up Highland Avenue to see four of Piedmont’s. Our long parade of walkers went a short distance on the 400 block of Wildwood Avenue checking out its autumn look. The leaves of the Autumn Blaze Maple trees that line both sides of the street were showing more burgundy color.
We entered Wildwood Gardens and made our way up it, passing a large, new home that is being built, to Woodland Way. A short distance up it was our first Little Free Library at 50 Woodland Way. We inspected its contents and made some deposits and withdrawals. We also noted the Little Free Library emblem on its door and that the library was built in the same design as the home behind it. We took the attached group photo in the broad garage space in front of the house and library.
June had us retrace our steps back up Woodland Way and complete the Wildwood Gardens loop at Crocker Avenue. It was then up Hampton Road to 393 Hampton for our second library. This well-stocked box was under a redwood tree and had a wood roof on a wood stand that blended nicely into the woodsy yard. Inside the library’s wood framed glass door were travel books that caught some walkers’ eyes.
We again retraced our steps, this time to Sea View Avenue for a climb up it to Mountain Avenue and our final two libraries. The ones at 352 and 224 Mountain got some serious picking over, as this was our last chance of the morning to stock up on free reading.
This was our last stop of the morning and also a chance to thank June for a fun and instructive walk. However, it was noted that there are more little sidewalk book libraries on the west side of town that can be explored on a future Wednesday walk with June.
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