DURANGO, Colo.—A book-exchange box at the foot of the Centennial Nature Trail receives such heavy use that the two Durango women who installed it are preparing a second tiny library to be placed along the Animas River Trail.
Barbara Balaguer and Charlotte Overby have taken part in the barely 4-year-old Little Free Library movement that is spreading across the country and around the globe.
It’s a simple concept. A box, a bin or a bucket is placed in an open, well-traveled spot and primed with a few books for the taking.
The hope is that borrowers will leave an unwanted tome in exchange for one taken, but it’s not necessary.
Todd Bol started it all in 2009.
Bol, from Hudson, Wis., built a little library in the form of a one-room schoolhouse to honor his mother, a former school teacher, who loved to read.
He placed the structure on a post in his front yard, where it captured the attention and approval of his neighbors.
The goal of building more little libraries than 2,500 regular-sized libraries was reached in August 2012. The worldwide total today is estimated at around 10,000.
Libraries have rules, but there’s no charge to check out a book, Balaguer said. The books themselves are free, she said.
“This is just a different kind of free library,” she said.
Astrid Oliver, director of Reed Library at Fort Lewis College, agrees.
“It shows that it’s not necessary to go to a building to exchange ideas. A natural place is just as good,” Oliver said.
Balaguer and Overby converted an old kitchen cupboard into their first little library.
Renelle Stewart is building a box from wood taken from an old barn she is dismantling on her property in Bayfield.
“We were thinking about using old pallets,” Balaguer said as she watched Stewart measure and cut wood in Stewart’s Bayfield studio.
When the little library is finished, Stewart will install it along the Animas River Trail behind the Riverfront Center at Camino del Rio.
The Animas River Trail library will be called Riverside R.E.D. for “read, explore, discover.”
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Information from: Durango Herald,
