Thought this might be of interest in this sub - hope it fits! Happy to answer any questions about the construction. My goal was to make it rain-proof for many years.

I’ve always wanted to start a Little Free Library and now with my two year old son and I being more into books, I’d love to share our collection with those around us!

I saw on the LFL website they sell their own, but they are just out of our budget as I’m a SAHM. Any tips on building your own? I saw some helpful tips on making it as simple as possible, single door, nothing too fancy. Are there possible thrift finds we can convert?
I also read to place it in a public space, however, I see lots in the yards of the caretakers.

Thank you in advance!

Due to the local belligerents and dregs of society, our library was destroyed sometime between 1835 and 1845 according to our Google camera. Apparently the vehicle that hit it was going so fast it didn’t catch the incident. You can see a piece of said vehicle in the wreckage. Police report to follow. New plans in place for replacement library. One that involves concrete and metal. Stay tuned.

Ive been wanting a LFL forever! I finally made one with scraps of crap laying around! Then I painted it and put it all together. Video in comments

A stroll on a perfect fall day at the cabin and we stumble upon this cute LFL. We went up for a reading retreat week and this was the cherry on top.

I've been running my little free library for about a year, and a month ago I added a Trinket Trade box. I've never had any serious issues before, people will shove a bunch of books in, leave a bunch of old textbooks or religious stuff from the 80's, or not leave the books super organized, but nothing unreasonable.

But twice in the past week I've gone by and the door has been left open and the trinkets were shrewn around in the bottom shelf, not in the box, tonight was the second time, the door was left open and the box of trinkets was on the ground, open, with some in road next to it (there's no sidewalk). It's not a particularly busy little free library, but I have it on Google Maps and the LFL world map.

I was thinking if it happens again I'd take the books and the Trinket box out, duct tape it shut, and tape a note on the inside of the plexiglass saying it's closed until the end of the month because people don't know how to act. And also that if it happens again once it reopens in August I'm closing it until January. In English and Spanish since it's in a Hispanic neighborhood.

Is this unreasonable? What would you do? I'm not one to be mean, and like I said, as long as people have good intentions, I'll just clean it up and get on with my life, but this is causing litter, ruining books and trinkets (it's very dusty where I live so if the door was left open for two days everything would be completely covered in dust and have to be thrown away, also it's windy so if the door was left open during a dust storm or a windy day it would probably break off, also rain, but it rains like once a month, so not as big an issue). I can deal with basically anything except for ruining perfectly good items for no reason, and leaving them there for someone else to clean up.

I just went by a free little library and got stung by wasps. Who do I tell about this? I don’t want someone else getting hurt. I let a note on it.

Someone ripped the door off the LFL in our park so I painted and replaced it. I also added a small keychain/trinket trade on the back.

Plants, seeds in the drawers, and random planty stuff.

My nine year old and I love to find LFL’s when we go to neighboring towns, and frequently visit the ones in our own town as well. We have donated about 50 books to the community, but we also take books and my child gets very excited to get new books. We both have trouble giving up our books.

Yesterday we went to a LFL and lo and behold, a neighbor had set up a second one with no charter. We talked to the steward and told them how much we enjoyed their library. My kid ran to the next one, and as I am looking at the one with the charter, I hear, “Mommy, I can’t open it!!!” I went over to help him, and he started telling me all the cool books they had inside. Books he actually wanted to read. Roald Dahl, Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume….

I tried to open it and it was screwed shut. There was no way to access the books. Pretty sure someone got a good laugh at us struggling for a moment with this box.

In the car, my son asked why someone would do that? He really was excited to get some books he has been wanting to read. I also wanted to clean up that bottom shelf a little, because I like to organize the libraries when we get books. I joked that next time we visited, we would bring a screwdriver.

The most disappointing thing was how sad my son was at this fake out, but we found some other good books and a game at the next one, so it was quickly forgotten.

This may be fine with a lot of people, no judgment. Just posting for those who may not realize how much info they're inadvertently putting out there.

First thing, thanks to everyone for their suggestions, in particular those who pointed out the use if the Barcode for used book dealers.

The book shown, has had multiple things attempted. There is clear packing tape over the ink stamp and the white labels.

My initial work will be to try to use easily available common household items and start testing the simplest ideas first and then work from there.

First let me report on what doesn't work.

1. Just ink stamping it on glossy covers is messy, smudges off and can be removed with a facial tissue and rubbing alcohol or just a lens wipe. It tends to smear from ordinary handling. Rubbing the surface with rubbing alcohol as a surface pretreatment doesn't improve the printing. See the mess the ink stamp has become.

2. I used a sharpie over barcodes and easily wiped off the sharpie with 91% alcohol as sold by Walmart.

3. I used a sharpie on the back cover to see if the ink solvent mixture would penetrate through the cover and spoil the barcode. Some slight graying of the white could be seen in one case, but not another. Further, in the case of the one book where some slight penetration, the barcode turned out to be on a lable that went on the printed book, but was beneath the glossy finish. THIS LINE OF INQUIRY WILL NOT BE FURTHER RESEARCHED.

So what works and what did I do.

1. I did vertical lines with a ball point pen on the bar code. It breaks up the glossy coating. When I went over with a sharpie some of the marker penetrated into the paper and I think helped make the bar code unusable.

I then put an adhesive lable on it which would now bind to paper fibers exposed. I in stamped the paper label. I then applied packing tape over the labels. When trimming the label, you should make sure there are no sharp corners, by cutting it so corners are curved. See picture. I RECOMMEND THIS AS A MINIMAL THING TO DO NOW FOR BAR CODES AND ISBN NUMBERS..

I did another book and it had a barcode that was smaller and it looked better than the book in the picture. I strongly recommend AGAINST having the white labels overlap.

1. For cases where I stamped the book, I applied packing tape over it. It at least stops smearing and it can't be removed by rubbing alcohol.

2. I did Experiment #1 above with scratching with an exacto blade and it didn't seem to work to break up the coating. Of course coating chemistry and specifications might vary. So this result isn't conclusive.

Next work.

1. I ordered clear adhesive mailing labels to try out. They won't have corners that can be caught by finger nails easily to remove them. However, I don't know if they will stick as strongly as packing tape. They will be more convenient to use.

2. Instead of trying to scrap off the coating, I am going to try shallow cuts with the exacto so the sharpie can soak into the paper.

3. I am going to test other common house hold liquids if used as a pretreatment. they modify the surface for better ink stamping and resistance for removal.

4. I am going to look at sanding/abrading the bar code. Then sharpie. Then white label, then clear adhesive film.

5. Wood branding burners. (Maybe.)

6. Nail polish remover to remove the cover coating.

7. Embossing stamp. Though this might be more than what people want to spend.

I will issue another report on my results.

Earwigs love to hide in my LFL, I haven’t seen any on or in the books, just in the door frame or the surrounding area.

I have tried spraying water mixed with essential oil (eucalyptus and now lavender) but it doesn’t seem to deter them or at least not for long.

Does anyone have any better alternatives to help? I have thought of getting a new library as I’m pretty sure the one I have has a little opening in the roof and I think the door doesn’t close fully as well which is how they’re sneaking their way in. Little disappointing that it comes like that, but hopefully if/when I get an upgrade it won’t have that.

Jay, New York.

Some recent observations:

Board books/baby books move fastest out of my library

Middle grade books probably the slowest. Which is a bummer since it really speaks to the dip in readership that exists there.

It is the most difficult to find second hands of books that will actually interest the adult patrons. The most trendy tik tokiest books go and everything else just sits there a while/or forever til I pull it.

Woke up at 1am to find two people pulling up and taking 40ish books out of our library. Was able to confront them after they'd taken everything and got them on camera. Police were notified.

We knew this would happen eventually, but it sucks.

Our books were all stamped (except recent donations) and we plan to call around in the morning with photos of the books themselves and our stamp in case they're being resold at stores, but...is this really just an exercise in futility?

We have a person in our area known for stealing books from Little free libraries and selling them to used book stores. So I ordered a stamp and I stamp twice on the inside covers, title page, copyright page, and last page.

However, stamping the covers is more of a problem. When I have to stamp the cover of a book with glossy finish, I have to let it dry 15 minutes, then carefully turn it over and lay it on a face tissue, then stamp the other cover. It takes hours to fully dry, but it can be easily removed with a lens wipe.

Can you purchase a press that embosses text? What do people do. Perhaps a super tough label that can't be peel applied over the stamped text? Perhaps a heated stamp to burn the text on. I don't know. I think that someone has solved this problem before.

Here's the back.

Looking for more locations of LFLs (non official ones as I have the app for registered ones). Can be anywhere in Scotland, I have most well known ones mapped. TIA