I've watched the evolution of a few of these things. My experience is that even if people aren't trying to be jerks then the quality of books inevitably goes down over time as people take the things they find interesting and replace them with things they find less interesting. You might think that since different people find different things interesting that this might work out in the end, but it doesn't seem to.

Add to this the fact that some people are just jerks and will take books without replacing them, plus a bunch of people who see this as an opportunity to promote either their self-published books or their own political opinions, and you get a bookshelf rapidly being denuded of popular books and filled up with political tracts, dated "how to" books and obscure genre novels from the 1970s.

Compare this to, say, an ordinary public library, which allows you to freely borrow any one of many thousands of well-catalogued books as long as you return it in a few weeks.

Cool! In Hamburg there are such mini libraries in some busses http://www.hamburg.de/image/4027762/uncropped/690/518/bc2ce8... and as I see here we already have one little free library too :) http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_%C3%B6ffentlicher_B%C3%BC...

"There is also a one-time payment of $34.95 per Library to receive a Steward’s Packet of support materials and 1 official charter sign and number for your Library."

For that amount you can get 20-30 used books at a library sale to stock your little library.

There's one of these near where I live in Atlanta. I always love seeing new books come in and out. Maybe I should stock it with some more technical topics...

was downvoted for my previous comment, let me clarify, books are a known vector for bed bugs. libraries are facing this problem all over. a friend of mine worked at the columbia university library and had to go through freezing process on returned books.

all i'm saying is, books cost hardly anything, libraries have ebooks. why expose yourself to this problem?

google it if you do not believe me.

One thing I like about this concept is that it's based on people creating public space on their private property. They are well maintained, aesthetically pleasing, but also quite eclectic. Since these are typically set up by individuals on residential property, they aren't just token efforts – they aren't a disingenuous attempt to prove the person is community-minded (though I'm sure appearing community minded is a motivation, it's just not a disingenuous motivation ;)

I wish there was more of this. I'd actually like to put a bench in my front yard, facing the sidewalk – unfortunately people would use it to congregate and drink. But then, so it goes – there are other people near me who wouldn't have that problem, because these problems are typically block-by-block. For some reason my yard appears like a perfectly good drinking spot, I'm not sure why, but I am very aware of it.

When benches are put in by the city, the person who makes that decision is not at all aware of these specific issues. They don't live with the result of the infrastructure they create. So we have another public bench near us that causes problems. Or often there are no benches available because they are seen as a nuisance, or the public space is rendered hostile in some fashion to discourage loiterers, which simultaneously discourages all enjoyment. These are the crude choices cities make because the people planning aren't intimately involved with the specific environments they are affecting.

(If I ever do something with the hill in my front yard I think I'd like to install a slide. I think that would be enjoyed but not abused. And if I'm wrong I'll have to figure out myself how to fix it)

Here in Seattle, there are tons of these. There are probably 6 or 7 in my neighborhood alone.

It's a great idea, and a fun project for the community.

A while back, a local non-profit here in Flint, MI held a campaign and got a handful of these put up. It is amazing that, in a city where anything not bolted down is fair game for theft, these Little Free Libraries are (afaik) always stocked, and I have never heard any stories of people finding their LFL empty one morning. It does restore a little faith in humanity.

It's interesting to see this on HN. I came across one of these when randomly wandering a residential street in Toronto, and was thoroughly intrigued as I looked up the website on my phone. I didn't end up taking any of the books, but it did seem to be pretty well-stocked.

Someone built on in my neighborhood and it stood for about a year before someone lit it on fire. It was rebuilt, hopefully it was just a random act of destruction and it will stick around this time.

I saw something similar when I was Berlin, by the Grunewald S-Bahn station. There is a memorial platform of the deportation of Jews from Berlin and the area around the city called Track 17 (German: Gleis 17) and nearby the station entrance there's a converted phone booth (in bright "happy" colors) with books on the history and surrounding stories.

It seemed quite popular, with a few people sitting on the benches next to it reading (books presumably from the Book Booth)

There's one on my corner. It's also an Ingress portal. :) I stock it with kids books, mostly. And of course keep it shielded.

I got all fired up and now I'm going to set one up. My carpentry skills are zero, so I'm thinking of just taking an Ikea Nornäs, painting it waterproof and adding a plexiglass door and a better roof (I have some spare tiles left from the previous owner that should do the trick).

There are a number of these in Seattle.

Sounds like a great idea until the city zoning board comes to tear it down. http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/19/why-we-need-government-to-...

These are everywhere in Minneapolis. I've restocked them a few times when a book purge is done.

I've seen these throughout residential neighborhoods in Portland. Most seem to be stocked with romance novels or childrens lit, but my wife recently found a biography of Captain James Cook that she was planning to read.

I drive by one of these every day in Vermont. I thought it was a mailbox at first. I hope these are self sufficient and don't get taken advantage of. It's a great idea.

This is great. Had I the materials, I'd have gone to start building one half way through reading the front page.

I've seen these in St.Petersburg, Russia ~month ago.

watch out for bed bugs.