Now, I say in your garden but over the last few years I have come across these little popup libraries, outside shops, beside car parks, and pretty much anywhere, where lots of people pass.
This one is in Chorlton, and is part of the Little Free Library.*
And as you do I went looking for more information and as ever Wikipedia had the lot. “The Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization that promotes neighborhood book exchanges, usually in the form of a public bookcase.
More than 90,000 public book exchanges are registered with the organization and branded as Little Free Libraries.
Through Little Free Libraries, present in 91 countries, millions of books are exchanged each year, with the aim of increasing access to books for readers of all ages and backgrounds. The Little Free Library nonprofit organization is based in Hudson, Wisconsin, United States”.**
There is more, but I have a policy of never representing other people’s research, so you fill have to follow the link to get the full story.
The purists will quibble and say that they are not true libraries, which offer a host of other resources, but that is to mis the point that anything which advances reading and a love of books has a part to play. After all I am of an age to remember those private libraries which for a small fee lent books. Ours in New Cross was in a bookshop, but many were part of newsagents. And they were always a supplenet to those eager to read.
Mother went to our public library twice a week and also used the one on Queens Road.
Location; Chorlton
Picture, the Little Free Library, 2021, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Little Free Library, https://littlefreelibrary.org/
**Little Free Library, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Free_Library, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Free_Library
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