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Our History - Little Free Library Page 1 of 3 <br /> Home About ' BUY Stewards&Friends Get Involved GIVE Make It Official j Map Bing Contact j 'Search Us . <br /> I I <br /> ..................-.: <br /> The History of Little Free Library <br /> The People Who Started the Movement <br /> In the beginning-2009-Todd Bol of Hudson,Wisconsin,built a model of a <br /> one room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother,a former school teacher <br /> who loved reading. He filled it with books and put it on a post in his front <br /> yard. His neighbors and friends loved it. He built several more and gave <br /> them away. Each one had a sign that said FREE BOOKS. <br /> Rick Brooks,of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, saw Bol's do-it-yourself <br /> project while they were discussing potential social enterprises.Together,the <br /> two saw opportunities to achieve a wide variety of goals for the common <br /> good. Each brought different skills to the effort,Bol as a creative craftsman <br /> experienced with innovative enterprise models and Brooks as a youth and <br /> community development educator with a background in social marketing. <br /> They were inspired by many different ideas: <br /> The very first Little Flee Librmy <br /> • Andrew Carnegie's Support of 2,509 free public libraries around the turn built by Todd in honor of his mother. <br /> of the 19m to 20ih century. <br /> • The heroic achievements of Miss Lane Stearns,a librarian who brought books to nearly 1400 locations in Wisconsin <br /> through"traveling little libraries"between 1595 and 1914. <br /> • "Take a book,leave a book"collections in coffee shops and public spaces. <br /> • Neighborhood kiosks,TimeBanking and community gift-sharing networks <br /> • Grassroots empowerment movements in Sri Lanka,India and other countries worldwide. <br /> Growth and New Ideas. <br /> By the summer of 2010 the mission and purposes served by the little boxes of books were <br /> becoming more clear. The original models had all been built with recycled materials. <br /> Each was unique but all shared the theme of exchanging good books and bringing people <br /> together for something positive. <br /> The names"Habitat for the Humanities,"`House of Stories"soon gave way to what more <br /> and more people called Little Free Libraries. Early adopters of this little innovation <br /> http://Iittlefreelibrary.org/ourhistory/ 6/19/2014 <br />