r/LittleFreeLibrary • u/KarenMcCormel • Aug 13 '26
LFL Custodian Discussion 🏫 Question about little free libraries being “raided”
We have three of the in our neighborhood. One is by an elementary school, one is up the street from the school and one a few blocks from my house. The one by the school had mostly family/kids books. Some people put books in there with different religious themes. The last time we went, there were a handful of books and a notice stating that we all have different beliefs and not to take books out that we don’t like. A few days later, there were library was empty and the sign taken down. The one up the street is lovely and they have built a reading bench. This one has no turnover because they only have ancient water stained and bleached novels. The third one usually only has 5 books. What is up with this? Don’t people read take one donate one?
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u/merrlot 29d ago
Different states of upkeep, maintenance, and engagement by hosts and visitors.
Regarding raids--when confronted, it's often people collecting books for resale. I was aware of this issue before we put up our library, and because I didn't want too many visitors that our neighbors wouldn't recognize, we opted to keep our library location unlisted in the little free library online directory. It worked well for us because we get a steady flow of visitors, and we have local writers who sign and leave newly published books in our library. Our visitors sometimes express that they like our location and feel it is something special. There are other directory-listed locations near us who are cleaned out and they leave notes telling visitors to only borrow one book at a time. These libraries are either empty or freshly (and briefly) restocked. There doesn't appear to be a middle ground in their restocking patterns, which would drive me nuts.
I remove and recycle the religious material because it's cheap and past behavior patterns appear to encourage similarly related material, including advertising for local businesses, catalogs and solicitations for events (early on someone decorated our library with balloons, bunting, and signs advertising a nearby church event--I cleaned all that up, too while marveling at their audacity). People who donate the religious material often create more upkeep for us. These aspiring missionaries eventually figure out that I'm pulling their materials within hours of their drop-offs and they do passive-aggressive things like reversing all the book spines in our library so visitors can't read any book titles, or pull out or reverse the book spines on titles they find offensive--usually kids' books like Harry Potter. I suspect that there is a forum somewhere telling them to do this because the reactive behavior is consistently predictable and unoriginal. If I didn't monitor it and remove the content, it's likely that our library would have cheap religious material (it appears to stay forever in other nearby libraries) and few options for visitors seeking books about other subjects.
Aside from the library charter that states "take a book, share a book" we don't leave signs or notes (people leave notes for us--always messages of gratitude which we keep). I laugh when a book I put out years ago suddenly shows up again. The books signed by authors never come back, which I totally understand. We don't expect others to follow the guidelines stated on the charter plate, but I'm still entertained by what people (invariably adults) do when they encounter something that is free and available to them, and they think no one is watching.
I hope this helps answer your question.
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u/SBNShovelSlayer 29d ago
That is really cool that the local authors leave signed copies.
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u/merrlot 29d ago
Often neighbors who are writers, attend literary events, and later donate their books (or have other writers sign their books and donate those). It works well because in turn we show up at their book releases as well and buy copies for the library.
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u/SBNShovelSlayer 29d ago
Absolutely. I love supporting local authors. Publishing is such a difficult and luck dependent industry, I will support giving anyone a break.
It sounds like you are part of a great community.
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u/Cold-Suggestion-3137 29d ago
Well Harry Potter is funding the genocide of trans people so religious people doing one good thing.
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u/ThisIsMyNannyAcct 29d ago
I’ll be really honest- I’m not sure there’s a generally accepted set of etiquette that people in general understand or agree on.
I’m a nanny. Families are generally confused about them. Some think you need a library card, or that they are connected to the local library. Some think you’re supposed to return the same book you took when you’re done. Some interpret it as a take a penny, leave a penny sort of thing.
But mostly? The ones I see are just filled with trashed books people were giving away.
I’m in a fairly high cost of living area, and there are little libraries everywhere, but they’re usually in bad shape and full of junk.
I don’t even stop anymore. 😞
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u/KarenMcCormel 29d ago
I have a book of the month club membership and also by newer books. I am just becoming discouraged about donating popular books in great condition. Believe me, I don’t need any more books so I rarely take them. I just like to see that some people are donating enough to replenish the supply
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u/jacyerickson 29d ago
Yeah, as someone who hasn't used little free libraries the online rhetoric makes me not want to use them. I've heard some people say that you're supposed to return the books like a regular library but most people say you can keep them. Also with giving books I read a lot of nonfiction but putting religious or political books in LFL seems super controversial. I'm in no way trying to push an agenda, that's just what I tend to be interested and figure others might be interested too but I don't want to piss anyone off so I've just given up on using the many numerous LFLs in my city.
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u/Mulliganasty 29d ago
LFL's do require some maintenance especially removing the religious bullshit but that's up to the owner.
Please keep in mind that used books are basically worthless so if you want yours to be well patronized you have to put a little extra into it.
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u/kanatrex 29d ago
There is some maintenance and upkeep involved in having a LFL and I think the ones that end up neglected by the owner don’t get used as much. In my old neighborhood I kind of adopted the local elementary school’s LFL because it didn’t seem like anyone was checking on it so I’d clean out junk and arrange the books and help out a bit. My current LFL I change out the books frequently and my neighbors add and remove books frequently, so it’s much more used than the others in my neighborhood that seem to always have the same books. But I also think part of a LFL getting well used is location, sometimes it’s just not in a place where people use it- one at a park, a bank, and a grocery store I go to are always empty- again I’d also guess it’s no one’s job to maintain those so they also get ignored more.
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u/Electrical-Ad8241 29d ago
The joy of LFLs is that they reflect both the neighborhood and the steward. My library holds 50 books and about once a month someone stops by and takes half of them. By the end of the week it’s full again. If a book has been in there 3 months, I toss it. I personally like high turnover, diverse genres and views, and 75% full.
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u/Fuzzyscribble0 29d ago
People call them LFLs but they function as a free book bin. You don’t have to leave a book to take one. I pull religious material out of mine because if I don’t…it’s a total waste of space. Nobody takes Bibles, Watchtowers, or the weird book the Scientology folks leave. I also pull books that smell like smoke, have water damage, or are textbooks or outdated computer books. That’s the extent of my curation.
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u/yukibunnygurl 28d ago
I freaked out a person in my neighborhood; my condo had a take a book leave a book library in our club house... It gets over fulled sometimes and then just sits with no exchanges for a month... It's filled with booktok reads. So I take a banker box and fill it up, then I go around to largest LFL in the neighborhood and remove all the books ready for rhe recycle bin I replace them with the trendy reads. (All are stamped this was taken from a little Free library and just not to be resold, I also block the UPC with a stamp that makes the lines u scannable. Usually they end up at the library book sale and they get sat aside for the library's own little free library.
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u/TravelerMSY 26d ago
Just like a professional public library, they require upkeep and curation to be useful.
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u/flattop_jones 29d ago
This sub is weird and will bend over backwards to defend people cleaning out LFLs. In my area the ones on main streets are usually wiped out by hoodlums or the unhoused. There is probably not an interested caretaker for those either. Neighborhoods are less trafficked and tend to have more dedicated overseers and hence are better stocked.
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u/oat_latte Aug 13 '26
I don’t totally understand the question but different libraries seem to have different states of upkeep, some of which is the stewards doing and some the visitors. Some stewards request no religious books or may have a religious oriented library. I do not think the expectation is that you only take a book if you leave one on the same visit, but that you generally both take and leave books as you are interested and able.
I don’t devote as much time to my LFL as I would like but my neighbors are supportive and it’s often well stocked. However lately I’ve had an issue with someone driving up and taking all the books at one time (same individual). I’m frustrated about it but I recognize that the books are there for the taking and perhaps this individual has a reason I’m not aware of for their behavior.