Short Stuff: Alternative Libraries

Today we highlight and celebrate a couple of alternative libraries. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 0:39Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck, and we're sitting in for Dave today, and this is short stuff.

• 0:45Speaker 02

  That's right. And we are here today to talk about, this is sort of a two-parter in one, about, I'm just calling this alt libraries, as in alternative libraries.

• 0:55Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  One reason is because I was on a walk the other day, and we have quite a few little free libraries in our neighborhood, and they're all super cute, if you don't know what we're talking about.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  They're little boxes, usually in the shape of a house, or it could be a doghouse, or it could be a literal library or schoolhouse, just some sort of small, housey-type structure with a little clear door, and inside are books that you can take a book, you can take a couple of books, you can leave a book, and it's just one of the great things. And I grabbed one, I usually don't even look at them that much because I just have too many books I'm behind on already, but I, one popped up in my eye, peripheral vision that would be perfect for Ruby, so I grabbed it, and she's reading it and loving it, and so I thought we should do a little ode to alt libraries like this.

• 1:43Josh Clark?

  What was the book?

• 1:47Speaker 02

  I can't remember, The Last Kids on Earth or something like that?

• 1:50Josh Clark?

  Oh, that sounds good.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  That may not be the title, but that's sort of the premise.

• 1:54Josh Clark?

  Is she, she might be too old for this, but maybe not. Has she ever read any of the Scary Stories of Telling the Dark books?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  I don't think, and it is actually called The Last Kids on Earth. It looks like it's a series. No, that's, that sounds like Something Right up her alley, though.

• 2:10Josh Clark?

  Okay, go to eBay and find whatever additions came out in the 80s.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:17Josh Clark?

  Because they have some of the greatest illustrations ever. That made everything so much more unsettling. You have to get those watercolor illustrations or else, don't even bother.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  I'm looking at them now and they are terrifying.

• 2:33Josh Clark?

  They are. It's so great. I remember being a kid and just being like, this is, this is so great. I feel so alive.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  Thanks for the rec.

• 2:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah. There's also more scary stories. The Tunnel in Dark, pretty much equally good.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  So maybe we should flip it and start with Little Free Libraries since I mentioned that one first as inspirado, but in 29, how the story goes, and this is straight from their website. A man named Todd Bowles from Wisconsin, Hudson, Wisconsin, started it all when he built a little model of a, of a schoolhouse, of a little one-room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mom, who's a teacher. Put it on a post, put some books in it and said, hey, everyone, if you want a book, take one. If you want to drop one off, that'd be great too. And it was a big hit.

• 3:15Josh Clark?

  It was a huge hit, actually. So apparently Andrew Carnegie funded, I believe, 2,500 plus. For some reason, everybody says 2,508, so I'm guessing that's the number. Public libraries around the turn of the last century, or early last century. And there's still plenty around that he essentially partnered with whatever local government and said, I'll give you a bunch of money, or I'll throw in half, or something like that. And that was one of the big pieces of philanthropy he was known for. So I guess Todd Bowles and Rick Brooks said, let's try to see if we can make 2,508 of these things by the end of 2013, which was a couple of years after they started.

• 3:59Josh Clark?

  And they just blew that goal out of the water.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. Rich Brooks was the guy, like you said, he partnered with. He actually retired from the, which is now an NGO, in 2014. But he, you know, they were pals and he thought it was a great idea. And again, inspired by Carnegie, they they set out to start building these by 2010. So in 29 is when the first one was built. By 2010, it was like an established thing that was happening. They started to give them away. They had charter signs if it was an official one engraved with a charter number. And it just, people were into it and they started, you know, you see one of these things in your neighborhood. I remember when I saw the first one, I was like, wow, that's an incredible idea. And it felt like within that year, we had like six or seven more.

• 4:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I remember the first time I saw one, I didn't get the concept. So I kinda, I saw a book that I wanted. And so I looked around to make sure no one was looking and put it in my jacket and ran off really quick.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  I thought you were gonna say you got, you got a bunch of books and you sold them on eBay.

• 5:03Josh Clark?

  No, I just took one.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  And sold it on eBay?

• 5:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, eventually. But I said that when they started, they wanted to make 2,508 of these things within a couple of years. They ended up surpassing that with a year and a half left before their goal date. And they just kept going from there. Apparently Chuck, here's some mind boggling numbers for you. So they started in 2009. In 2022, there were more than 150,000 Little Free Libraries across the world in 120 different countries.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did not know it had gone international until I started doing this research. It's just incredible. Like I said, Brooks retired in 2014. Someone actually wrote in 2015, a woman named Margaret, oh, she's a pretty famous author, actually. Margaret Aldrich wrote the Little Free Library book. So all of a sudden, it's like launching books in and of itself. They got in 2014, that same year, the Library of Congress Literacy Award.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Just like, people are lauding it. People are building these things like crazy. And it's just become one of the cool things that the, you know, started here in the US and then spread all over the place. Very sadly, in 2018, Todd Bowles passed away from pancreatic cancer after the launch of their 75,000th, at the time, Little Free Library. And he was working for them up until the end and has a great quote. "I really believe in a little free library on every block and a book in every hand. I believe people can fix their neighborhoods, fix their communities, develop systems of sharing, learn from each other, and see that they have a better place in this planet to live."

• 6:48Josh Clark?

  Very sweet. That is a great last interview quote.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty awesome.

• 6:53Josh Clark?

  All right, well, let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about a different kind of alt library after this.

• 7:15Josh Clark?

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• 9:43Josh Clark?

  Okay Chuck, so we already talked about Little Free Libraries, which anybody can make, and if you want some tips, like we said, go check out the Little Free Library book.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:50Josh Clark?

  If you saw that in a Little Free Library, wouldn't the universe just collapse in on itself?

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can also donate to them, of course.

• 9:57Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's that kind of give a book, take a book thing. I don't know if we spelled it out or if we needed to, but that's the premise of it, right?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:06Josh Clark?

  Another thing was called the Human Library, and this was the result of a couple of, who I take to be artists, brothers Ronnie Abregel and Danny Abregel.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, have to be.

• 10:17Josh Clark?

  They, yeah, they, for a festival in Denmark about the year 2000, they created the Human Library in Danish, they call it meneske biblioteket, but all one word.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, bibliotech is, that's in a lot of languages, right?

• 10:34Josh Clark?

  Sure, but you add the ET to the end and you've got Danish.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 10:40Josh Clark?

  So what they what they created with this human library was the concept that the books were human beings. And there were human beings that people might want to get information from. So there were human beings who were typically looked down upon, mistreated, had different experiences from the mainstream. So you had like books that were trans people, unhoused people, people from different races. And you can check out one of these books, this human book, and hang out with them and ask them whatever question you want. And then you take them back and check out another one.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's it's sort of part performance art, part TED Talk in a way. Just kind of referring to them as books was the hook, I think. And obviously something to, you know, draw attention to their cause, which is very noble, I think. It started out as a small festival, and I think it ran eight hours a day for over four days initially, with 50 human books available. And now it is an international thing. They have human libraries in Asia, Africa, Australia, both of the Americas and Europe.

• 11:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I thought this was kind of cute, too. So if you're a volunteer as a book,

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:55Josh Clark?

  you go through a vetting process and then they teach you how to do this. And they call that getting published.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's pretty fun.

• 12:01Josh Clark?

  And then, once you're published, you can be checked out.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:04Josh Clark?

  And the rules for readers are that you respect the book, be curious, bring the book back on time and in the same condition.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  I'm keeping this book.

• 12:14Josh Clark?

  If you if you read between the lines, I think bringing it back in the same condition means that they don't want any pages stuck together with a booger.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah, don't make your book do your dishes. Don't put your book to work. That's not what this is about.

• 12:30Josh Clark?

  Well, luckily, the book can end the loan anytime they want. Like if things go pear shaped,

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:34Josh Clark?

  they can be like, I'm taking myself back to the library.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, just stamp my forehead so I can leave.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  Right. They also have mobile libraries called book depots. The headquarters for this, that it just carried on for the last couple of decades. It's headquartered in Copenhagen, but they have mobile libraries. And I guess they just go round up the books and they're like, sorry, you're published. They're coming with us on the road for a little while.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can also like book a group of books or, you know, check out a group of books at one time, like a company can do this and companies have done this. They'll, you know, it's something that companies do. They'll bring in like guest speakers and stuff. And in this case, they're doing it in the form of human books. They'll bring in a few different people to bring in to talk about, you know, things that, again, sort of like an individual would like, hey, let's bring in some people that maybe don't even work on our field, but might enlighten you to some diverse topics and people and ways of thinking. So like Microsoft and Eli Lilly and other brands have gotten together to kind of do this over the years.

• 13:39Josh Clark?

  Yes. And I think invariably at all of those events, there's at least one person who raises their hand and says, so wait, this is just Q and A?

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Right. Like, I don't get it.

• 13:49Josh Clark?

  What's the library thing? I don't, yeah, I'm totally confused.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:53Josh Clark?

  And they probably don't get very much out of the experience.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Exactly. Those people never do. But yeah, it's just sort of a fun hook. I like stuff like this. Some people might say it's silly, oh, they're not books, they're just people and it's just a Q and A. But I encourage people like that to sort of broaden their horizons, think outside the old box a little bit and CTFT.

• 14:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Just make sure that the person you're dragging off to be checked out is a published book and not just some rando.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  No, you don't want to do that. Hey, you're coming with me. That's called kidnapping.

• 14:24Josh Clark?

  Right. You got anything else?

• 14:27Speaker 02

  I got nothing else. Support Little Free Libraries, support The Human Book Project.

• 14:32Josh Clark?

  And support all libraries, too.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, those are great also.

• 14:36Josh Clark?

  Short Stuff is out.