Walking Around Thoughts: Little Library Freedom Ain’t Free

Little Free Librarie on 5th Ave in Wilmington, NC. Photo by Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Everything is simultaneous now; it all happens everywhere at once.

Thus, a police department in Bloomington, Minnesota announces online that they will be donating books after a series of thefts from ‘Little Free Libraries’ in their town, and, within hours, they have been mocked by readers around the world who emphasize the “Free” nature of the donations made through these community book kiosks. Something of a cross between a mailbox and a bird feeder, a ‘Little Free Library’ is a donation hub where neighbors are encouraged to “leave or take” books. Contrary to a popular misconception, one does not have to leave a book in order to take a book. Nor are they expected to return the book after reading it, as Newsweek reported.

The Little Free Library organization was started in Hudson, Wisconsin, in 2009 by an entrepreneur and former teacher named Todd Bol, as a tribute to his mother, and is now a global nonprofit with over 75,000 “public bookcases” in 88 countries. A volunteer “steward” sets up and maintains each library; in order to register a kiosk with the organization, it costs about $40. If you would like a library kit, rather than building your own, it will cost you $320, but comes pre-registered. Police protection is not included.

Nevertheless, as the Bloomington police responded to their critics, the issue in this case was an individual who was taking all of the books in order to sell them, something that goes against the “intent” of the boxes. It was unclear what detective work led them to this chilling conclusion, or who first called the police to report the theft of donated goods. Apparently, however, this is not an uncommon problem with many local news stations reporting on many a suspicious individual taking too many books, such that one “can only assume he’s sellling them.”

I’ve been thinking about this problem while walking around Hamilton, Ontario, where I live. Previously, I was blithely unaware of this particular issue, basically taking and leaving books willy nilly. I am well familiar with the kiosks however- during my regular walk home from work, I pass three ‘Little Free Libraries’; on my weekly walk to a friend’s bookshop, I pass five more. I’ve now noticed that one of them bears the “video surveillance” sticker photographed, apparently in order to deter this type of criminal activity. It is located in what I’ve heard been described as a “bad neighborhood,” or, at least, one with many such stickers.

Nevertheless, worrying about who takes books from a ‘Little Free Library,’ and why they do so, strikes me as a bit petty. No doubt, there are people who sell these books to used bookstores; yet, if this is an unethical act, it seems about on the order of pawning a birthday present.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should also mention that I have committed this crime: there was a time in my life that I was sufficiently poor to be living in my car and working a few shifts a week as a dishwasher; at this time, I often sold books I’d taken from Little Free Libraries through a friend’s store, although I always read them first. It never would have occurred to me that this was a vice. If it goes against the spirit of these book shelves, well, so does accusing someone of “stealing” a free donation.

It’s also, I think, on the order of two related phenomena:

1. The increased surveillance of public spaces and behaviors, and
2. The attribution or denial of spiritual or existential qualities to marginalized populations based on socioeconomic criteria.

“Marginalization” is perhaps too strong a word here- it sounds like some official bureaucratic policy of exclusion. Nevertheless, we can probably agree that social conformity is fairly commonplace and those individuals who are seen as somehow nonconforming will be isolated and treated as suspicious. In addition, the basic division of labor creates differing mores and norms, and essentially different cultures. People with all sorts of varying values live side by side; yet, Society must be defended! But from what part of society? We have to create “others” in the absence of clear and distinct others. Anecdotally, I would say this is the most outwardly conformist era I can remember living through.

Bookshelf? Or crime scene?…

Nevertheless, there is an imaginative aspect to marginalization. At least, it takes a great act of imagination to watch one person taking a handful of free books and assume they will be read and cherished, while another person is stealing them to turn a profit. Anyone who has been the target of that imagination has right to bristle. But, living in a city with wide disparities, I am often struck by how creative people can be in attributing spiritual qualities to others based on purely aesthetic criteria.

I had a landlord, for instance, who could have been a novelist in his flights of fancy about the less-privileged locals where we lived. The power would go out and he’d exclaim “One of those Hamilton people must’ve gotten drunk and driven into an electric pole!” My cat would sneak out and he’d warn not to put up a lost cat sign: “One of those people will catch him and demand a five hundred dollar ransom!” A nearby store would close and he’d say: “They must’ve been robbed too many times by the locals!” It was a little odd.

Not uncommon though; a former in-law of mine, and a somewhat militant athiest, imagined the less-privileged in this area to be fanatical religious zealots. At a nearby pharmacy, they will actually follow me to the hygiene aisle and watch me shop, presumably in case I were to steal soap and shaving cream. A local affordable apartment complex allows monthly room searches to be carried out by a private company made up of former police officers, who can supposedly sniff out “signs of hoarding, drug use, and prostitution.” One wonders what items in a woman’s apartment would be taken as signs of inappropriate sexual activity.

I suppose there is some emotional need satisfied when we attribute virtues or vices onto other populations- perhaps it’s a guilty conscience. The poor are in a strange position: required for society to function, but not full partners. There are barriers to their becoming full partners, including the overpoliciing, and some of these barriers are psychological.

Thomas Moore talks about this in Utopia (1516), accusing his society at one point: “You create thieves, and then punish them for stealing!” One inspiration for writing the work was Moore’s belief that the death penalty- a not-uncommon punishment for stealing in 16th century Europe- was unjust. What would be just? It must depend on the item stolen. And it must depend on the thief. A poor man who steals a muffin should be treated less harshly than a rich man who steals a pension fund. Hardly anyone thinks Jean Valjean was treated justly for stealing bread.

Is this what makes a measure “petty” — its disproportionality? Not exactly. To my mind, a punishment seems petty if it is: cruel, unwarranted, and minor. It would not be “petty” to cut off a hand for stealing; it would be an injustice. A convenience store posting a picture of a thief in their window is not “petty” because we generally agree it’s proportional. Were they to post a picture of the thief with their pants down, this might seem petty.

Already a hardened criminal…

Moore’s solution to the problem of stealing in Utopia was to do away with private property altogther. Similarly, Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that private property was the ultimate source of inequality. People criticize Rousseau all the time and unfairly it seems to me. The idea that inequality stems from private property was really a commonplace of the 18th century, particularly in religious thought. We associate it with Communism, and see private property as sacrosanct, but obviously Rousseau would not have. He was also familiar with all of the levels of his society, something uncommon among philosphes.

Lending libraries began among the lumières who could afford them. Public libraries, though, are a product of Victorian era moralism, a belief that we should broaden the cultural horizons of the laboring poor who maintain industrial capitalism. They probably stem from some of the same concerns that drove Marx, but are essentially rooted in philanthropy. Nevertheless, after the rise of the Great Society programs of the last century, community projects like little libraries and free book kiosks might have fallen uncomfortably outside of the aegis of the state or church or capital. Little free libraries might even seem vaguely communist- from each writer according to his ability, to each reader according to his needs!

Free books are basically community property, and maybe it’s the books we’re have suspicions about here. Or, perhaps, cultures based in private property simply don’t handle the notion of community property very well. Who, after all, will steward the book stewards?