I hope you are right about this “movement” being nothing to fear. I stick to my guns that their calling these things ‘Libraries’ could open the door to all kinds of misinterpretation or abuse.

That PLN tends to see trends from a ‘glass-half-full’ perspective is a delightful thing. From time to time this sincere desire to accentuate the positive will, no doubt, generate some comment from those of us enlisted in the ‘glass-half-empty’ brigade of which I’m, admittedly, a fully paid-up member.

The “Little Libraries” are, when it comes down to it, boxes with books in, not libraries. Therefore, it’s a name that raises some hackles in librarian circles, fully used to being replaced by volunteers or degraded by comparisons to rooms with books in. However, the movement is pro book and pro community (again that word can raise hackles but I mean that in the proper sense of that word), not anti public library and I don’t think we should feel threatened by it. There is a possibility here, already taken by some branches in London, to use them to publicise public libraries amongst those taken and donating the books. More to the point, the purpose of the public library is to promote reading and these boxes, often beautifully decorated, do that very well.

They’re not “libraries”, of course not, but I can cope with the trademark infringement because they’re promoting books, reading and sharing. We must choose our battles and our enemies, heaven knows we have enough of them, and I cannot see this movement/trend as anything to be afraid of.

It’s also worth pointing out that the ones the Reading Agency are involved with are to be placed in the gardens of library staff and so the article describes them correctly.

It is, to my mind, naive to suppose that “the movement” will not seek to establish many thousands of these birdhouses, with consequences that are wholly ignored by those who admire their fluffiness/cuteness. Did ANYONE foresee that the Reading Agency, no less, would climb aboard – Who next?

The Reading Agency should have nothing to do with “the movement” UNLESS the vocabulary, the rhetoric, used to describe these book-swap birdhouse things is changed, viz:

“I’m delighted that, because of my novel, Picador and The Reading Agency have conspired to create lots of little libraries which are going to be in librarian’s gardens around the country” — David Whitehouse

(a) These are NOT “libraries” and (b) the individuals who have them in their gardens are most unlikely to be “librarians” — unless you know otherwise, Ian.