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We set one up at the front of our yard years ago and I love having it! I try to keep a good stock of kids, romance, and fantasy in it as that seems to be the name for our neighborhood.
So it's an organization/brand? I thought it was just something that some homeowners like to do, not an official thing.
Yes and no. Not everybody knows about this organization and lists the library they made on this map, but most do!
I have seen a few of those around in my city and even some version of it at the college I attend. I wholeheartedly think these are great, so long as people don't abuse them. I've never seen one being abused here, but I can guarant in some regions it has already been abused.
Meanwhile I've never seen one not abused! People love to take the books, but not return them. I know this because I've made multiple trips to restock my local little library and every single time I went, nearly every book was gone, every time. I never saw any of the books I added ever again.
Yeah I haven't kept up with it but for a while there around me, these had a huge problem of people cleaning them out and selling all the decent books in them for some cash. Rinse and repeat every time it was restocked.
I was reading their FAQ section and they suggest marking, stamping, or otherwise defacing a book to lower its resale value. A line of marker down the spine won't ruin the reading, but will make it hard to sell.
I like these things. Had no idea there was an organisation involved.
Fun fact: you can get them in Animal Crossing. You can buy them straight up, or make them — the availability of the crafting recipe, or the item being available in the shop, however, is completely random. And they don't "do" anything. They're just a decoration. I like having one on my island near my houses though, or maybe up by the museum, but my current character has neither the recipe nor the actual item. One of those things that, if I get the recipe/item, I'll definitely put one out.
That's nice, but do people still read physical books?
IMO the best community library one can have is the internet, and sites like Anna's Archive allow for access to pretty much every book in existence from the comfort of your own bed.
People hate me when I say this, but in my opinion physical books are a novelty of the past, sure it's useful in an apocalypse for preservation and whatnot, but physical books are just limited and unpractical.
That must be why physical bookstores are seeing huge resurgence in sales I guess.
libraries also have dvds you can rent which are awesome. they also partner with libby/cw mars for ebooks
I like my kindle as much as the next person, as well as self host a book repo, but physical books are absolutely not a novelty of the past.
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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