Little libraries popping up locally

You’ve probably seen one, even if you didn’t know it. A small wooden box on a post filled with an assortment of books nestled inside. These Little Free Libraries have continued to pop up around the country and here locally in our own community.

Susan Piercy, president of the Royal City Friends of the Library group, helped to install a new Little Free Library near her town in August, with hopes of adding a few more soon. She said she had seen a few boxes around neighborhoods before reading up about the nonprofit organization online afterwards.

There are currently about 10 official Little Free Library boxes in Grant County, with a number of unofficial ones as well, including one near the New Life Church in Royal City.

“Some people set up their own independent ones that don’t have to do with the nonprofit, and that’s great too,” Piercy said. “Everybody’s encouraged to do it, get them out there.”

The new official library box is located outside of the Potholes General Store, and has been a popular installation to the area since being installed in early August, with books circulating quickly in and out of the box.

As someone who frequents the local library often herself, she said not being able to go for a long time during the pandemic was a driving factor in jumpstarting this nationwide non-profit program in her own community.

“That’s what spurred me on from the beginning,” Piercy said. “Before, we got a lot of youth from the community at the library, and it was closed. Still closed. So we were hoping this would get books in the hands of people, kids.”

The library box offers a way to reach out to people in the community and provide books for them, hopefully right in their own neighborhood. With one box already up, she said she has another one planned to go in at Royal Camp this fall, with hopes of adding another one in Royal City as well.

Another library box is set to go in at the Seed Cupboard Nursery in the spring. A lot of the book donations came through friends and fellow members of the library group, she said.

“I’ve gotten hundreds of books given to me just from people giving them to me and saying I want to help with this and donate,” Piercy said. “Through the website, there are lots of resources that offer low-cost books for people that want to set up a Little Free Library. The best part of that is they have a huge selection of English/Spanish titles.”

Piercy said she wants to have most of her English/Spanish titles go in the box that will be installed around Royal City so it will be available to families and parents. “I think it makes it fun for parents to be involved in reading to their kids,” she said.

A friend of Piercy’s donated books that are in Spanish, English and Braille, offering kids exposure to something they might not see very often.

Books at the Potholes location tend to focus more toward the vacation guests at the resort. She said the kids’ books fly off the shelf just as fast as the books for adults do. For the box going in at Seed Cupboard Nursery in the spring, she said the owner of the nursery told her she expects to have a lot of people coming up from Desert Aire.

Piercy said she’s tried to tailor the books at each location to best meet the needs of the people using them. Locations of the official Little Free Libraries can all be found on the their website at littlefreelibrary.org.

Piercy said she was involved with the Royal City Friends of the Library group about 30 years ago before taking time off with work and raising her family. Now, getting back into it the past three or four years, she said the group’s main goal remains expanding the current library in Royal City.

In regards to expanding the Little Free Libraries more in the area, she said she wants to get the basic areas covered first, looking for more places within Royal City. She said she doesn’t know if she’ll expand the boxes to surrounding areas much, but might look into adding some locations in the smaller areas around Royal City.

Casey McCarthy can be reached via email at cmccarthy@columbiabasinherald.com.