Little Free Library on a Springs Lawn
When Catherine Mottola-King erected a Little Free Library on her front lawn — described on the website of the organization promoting them as a “ ‘take a book, return a book’ neighborhood gathering place” — she didn’t expect the overwhelming response she got after announcing it on Facebook.
People from all over East Hampton left comments lauding the idea and expressing hopes that it would grow.
“I had seen them around and I thought it was fun,” said Ms. Mottola-King, a school librarian in Wantagh who lives in the Clearwater section of Springs. She is home on maternity leave, and decided that, with some time on her hands, now was the time to set up the book-borrowing station.
With the help of her husband and a friend, who built the little schoolhouse-style box on a post, she installed it on her front lawn at 17 Rutland Road and stocked it with extras from her own collection of fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books.
On Tuesday morning, looking out the window while having breakfast, she had her first “customer,” she said — a jogger who stopped to make a selection, then sprinted away, book in hand.
The Little Free Library movement began in Wisconsin in 2009 when a son built a schoolhouse model in tribute to his mother, a former schoolteacher, and set it up with a sign saying “Free Books.” The concept grew, with a goal of promoting literacy and a love of reading by erecting 2,510 tiny libraries, one more than the number of free public libraries supported by Andrew Carnegie at the turn of the century. A nonprofit organization was established, and by January of this year, it was estimated that there were at least 25,000 Little Free Libraries all around the world.
After she registers with the group, Ms. Mottola-King’s library will add to the number, and be adorned by a plaque. A map of all the Little Free Libraries, and tips for establishing one, can be found at littlefreelibrary.org.
Ms. Mottola-King’s 3-year-old son, Nathaniel, “couldn’t be more excited about it,” she said, helping his mom with “our own little library” and feeling like “we’re real librarians now.”