Community Collaboration: Houston County Little Free Libraries
The five public libraries in Houston County (Caledonia Public Library, Hokah Public Library, Houston Public Library, La Crescent Public Library, and Spring Grove Public Library) plan to install, decorate, and stock 25 registered Little Free Libraries throughout the county as a group project, with goals of promoting literacy, active living, and our communities in the process.
All 25 Little Free Libraries will be built by a local carpenter from La Crescent using general instructions found on the official Little Free Library website. They will be sturdy, weatherproof, and identical in size/shape, with the exterior unfinished to allow us to customize them on a local level with paint, stain, mosaic, etc. Each Little Free Library will be registered on the official Little Free Library website and, therefore, have a charter sign and number, appearing on the online world map of Little Free Libraries. Finally, each Little Free Library will host a colored plaque boasting the three logos associated with the Community Collaborations grant funding: Minnesota Library Legacy, Clean Water Land & Legacy Amendment, and SELCO/SELS. These will be created by local artist/businessman Craig Stanislawski of Wild Exhibit in Houston, MN.
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Our joint goals for this project are:
1. to increase access to free reading materials for citizens of all ages across Houston County outside of the walls and structured schedules of schools and libraries
2. promote our individual libraries and our regional library system by including informational brochures and bookmarks in each Little Free Library
3. collaborate with each other, as well as with many other organizations in our communities that have similar goals as our own
4. create fun, new, and vibrant places of interest in our small towns that not only promote reading and active living, but also connect people, are artistically interesting, and improve our general quality of life.
The majority of the Little Free Libraries will be located on public property within our communities. As a result, we have decided to create a bookmark that will be placed inside books within each Little Free Library. The bookmark will serve as a survey, having a series of questions on it and allowing users to express their attitudes towards reading, literacy, libraries, and the Little Free Library project. By turning the bookmark questionnaire into any public library in Houston County over the course of the summer months, the participating LFL user will be entered into a county-wide drawing for a Nook. Using this approach, we will be able to better understand the impact of our project on the public. In addition, since most of our county-wide Little Free Libraries will be re-stocked by library staff and volunteers using donated or withdrawn materials, we will also have a general sense of the number of volumes “checked out” over the three month period.
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SELCO, Caledonia Public Library, City of Caledonia, Caledonia Friends of the Library, Houston Historical Society, Hokah Library Board, City of Hokah, Friends of the Hokah Public Library, St. Peter's School in Hokah, Hokah Publicity Library, Houston Public Library, City of Houston, Friends of the Houston Public Library, Houston Arts Resource Council, LaCrescent Public Library, City of LaCrescent, Friends of the LaCrescent Public Library, Spring Grove Public Library, City of Spring Grove, Nisse Treehouse Childcare & Preschool, Friends of the Spring Grove Public Library,