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Doing this a little early, as I will be at Mythcon this weekend.
My attempts to dismantle the brick-and-board bookcase in the bedroom and get rid of the books has commenced. I checked with several used book stores, and it seemed hardly worth the effort of hauling boxes of books to the store--they assured me that they would look through them, reject most of them (and then I would have to take the rejected books back home), and give me only pennies for my trouble.
I have a coworker who is extremely interested and will be coming over next week to look at the collection. I hope he will take many of them off my hands. This past weekend, however, I resorted to another strategy: I went book bombing.
The Little Free Library nonprofit was started just over the state line in Wisconsin. This was one of the first places the idea spread, and it is very well-established. Besides mine, there are close to thirty Little Free Libraries within my zip code. I knew very well that many of Rob's books are old and perhaps not too appealing for modern audiences. But perhaps a science fiction fan walking by a library might stop to check and be THRILLED to find an old classic science fiction book by Pohl Anderson or James Blish or Clifford Simak or Robert Heinlein. If I left just a few books in any library I stopped at, it wouldn't be too overwhelming for the steward.
So that is what I did last weekend: I loaded up my car with a box of books and stopped at dozens of libraries. It was fun! Most of them were variations on wooden boxes, but I was rather impressed with the one made from an old microwave oven. I did run across one neighborhood where there was a cluster of them, and the neighbors had together stenciled paint on concrete squares, placing them around as stepping stones amidst the flowers planted around the libraries.
(I do think, of course, that mine is the prettiest of them all.)
All this work managed to empty only one of nine shelves. It feels like emptying an ocean with a tablespoon. I REALLY hope my coworker will want a LOT of these books. But at least I have started.
Image description: Background: square painted concrete blocks stenciled with designs. Overlaid: nine Little Free Libraries.
Book Bombing
Click on the links to see the 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
My attempts to dismantle the brick-and-board bookcase in the bedroom and get rid of the books has commenced. I checked with several used book stores, and it seemed hardly worth the effort of hauling boxes of books to the store--they assured me that they would look through them, reject most of them (and then I would have to take the rejected books back home), and give me only pennies for my trouble.
I have a coworker who is extremely interested and will be coming over next week to look at the collection. I hope he will take many of them off my hands. This past weekend, however, I resorted to another strategy: I went book bombing.
The Little Free Library nonprofit was started just over the state line in Wisconsin. This was one of the first places the idea spread, and it is very well-established. Besides mine, there are close to thirty Little Free Libraries within my zip code. I knew very well that many of Rob's books are old and perhaps not too appealing for modern audiences. But perhaps a science fiction fan walking by a library might stop to check and be THRILLED to find an old classic science fiction book by Pohl Anderson or James Blish or Clifford Simak or Robert Heinlein. If I left just a few books in any library I stopped at, it wouldn't be too overwhelming for the steward.
So that is what I did last weekend: I loaded up my car with a box of books and stopped at dozens of libraries. It was fun! Most of them were variations on wooden boxes, but I was rather impressed with the one made from an old microwave oven. I did run across one neighborhood where there was a cluster of them, and the neighbors had together stenciled paint on concrete squares, placing them around as stepping stones amidst the flowers planted around the libraries.
(I do think, of course, that mine is the prettiest of them all.)
All this work managed to empty only one of nine shelves. It feels like emptying an ocean with a tablespoon. I REALLY hope my coworker will want a LOT of these books. But at least I have started.
Image description: Background: square painted concrete blocks stenciled with designs. Overlaid: nine Little Free Libraries.
Click on the links to see the 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.
