You may have seen them on a walk near the beach, while driving to a restaurant, or in your very own neighborhood. Maybe they caught your eye for a second before you looked away, or maybe you are a regular contributor to them. They look almost like birdhouses, but instead of providing a home for our feathered friends, they hold something else: books.
According to their website, “A Little Free Library is a ‘take a book, share a book’ free book exchange. They come in many shapes and sizes, but the most common version is a small wooden box of books. Anyone may take a book or bring a book to share.” And now, a similar project is coming to Bishop’s, thanks to the Student Library Council (SLC). Though they won’t be registered under Little Free Library — as they are just for the Bishop’s community — the two little libraries will function similarly and hopefully encourage more reading on campus.
“I’ve always liked little free libraries,” explained Assistant Librarian and Faculty Leader of SLC Mr. Brandon Warner. “There’s a bunch in my neighborhood, and I’ve always used them, so I thought it would be a good idea to bring them here.”
But it isn’t just as simple as deciding to incorporate them into our campus: the little libraries took lots of planning. First came the design process, which Mr. Warner said was a team effort. “Admin wanted them to fit the aesthetic of the school, so they would fit nicely on campus, so they had a lot of input on design,” he explained. Then, Technical Director Mr. Kyle Melton and his students in Advanced Theater Production made them, with the help of a fundraising bake sale from the SLC to buy materials.
The libraries themselves are beige, and Mr. Warner said, “We’re going to put them on a stake like a birdhouse would be, and they’re going to be set in concrete like a planter, so we can move them around.” The Council is also “kicking around the idea of growing plants around it in the planter” and putting “signs on [the libraries] welcoming people to borrow from them and explaining the ‘take a book, leave a book’ system just so that no one wonders whether it’s for them or not.”
Ariadne Georgiou (‘26), a member of the SLC, said that she hopes this will “encourage people to read more in the increasingly digital world, where there’s all these digital things vying for your attention.” Indeed, the SLC as a whole “is all about trying to revive book culture and our generation’s excitement for reading.”
This is especially true for middle schoolers, Ariadne said. “An important part of middle school is sharing books and talking about them with your friends. I think encouraging middle schoolers by putting books on their minds and giving them something to do with the books they’re done reading will lead to more conversations about books at school.” This is part of why at least one of the libraries will be placed in the alumni courtyard in the middle school area. According to Mr. Warner, “Middle schoolers have much less free time to come to the library, so part of the idea was to put a little library in the middle school area, so that they have the option to grab books without needing to come down here [the library].”
However, that doesn’t mean all of the books will be geared towards sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. “We’re going to make sure there’s books in there for middle and high school reading as well,” said Mr. Warner.
The placement of the second little library is still up for debate, but the SLC is thinking about putting it outside the batting cages or near the parking garage, according to Mr. Warner. But no matter where they will be placed, we can expect them “within the next month,” as of February 23.
