About Little Free Library #8424

What is a Little Free Library?

It’s a “take a book, return a book” gathering place where neighbors share their favorite literature and stories. In its most basic form, a Little Free Library is a box full of books where anyone may stop by and pick up a book (or two) and bring back another book to share. You can, too!

If you want to learn more about the movement or host your own Little Free Library, please visit their website.

New Location

In the Fall of 2017, Little Free Library Charter #8424 re-located to the President’s Row neighborhood of North East Altadena near Eaton Canyon. We’re located in the parkway at 1837 Harding Avenue, Altadena, CA 91001 on the West side of the street between Berendo and New York.

We have much more available street parking in a flatter and more walkable neighborhood than our prior location in Adams Hill.

Our Library Philosophy

Though Chris built and hosts the library, he’s simply a steward or caretaker, of the branch. The library is free and open for the use of our friends and neighbors in Adams Hill and the surrounding neighborhoods. If you’ve stopped to check things out, you’re automatically an associate librarian. It is appreciated if everyone helps to care for and maintain the library.

General Suggestions

• The books in our library are always free and never for sale.
• Feel free to take a book – they really are FREE!
• If you have a book you’d like to share, please feel free to donate it.
• When you’re done with your book: return it, pass it along to a friend, or release it back into the wild.
• You don’t need to “check the book out” or “check it in”, but we do encourage you to sign our guest book and participate via Book Crossing [see below].

Book Crossing

All of our books in the Adams Hill Branch are “traveling” books. We try to register all of them on Book Crossing. This is a free web service for watching the journey of individual books as they meander about the world. If you’d like to, you can enter the BCID number inside the front of the book to see where it’s been and even where it goes after you’ve read it. You can also enter any data, thoughts, reviews, etc. for the book on your own, as well as create a note about where you re-released it. (Note that we don’t expect all of our books to necessarily come back to our branch, but we do ask that you pass them along when you’re done with them.)

Our library is an official Book Crossing Zone in Glendale.  Books that have been through our library can be found on Book Crossing.

We encourage everyone to create their own book crossing accounts and create BCIDs (Book Crossing ID’s) for their books when releasing/donating them to our library.  This isn’t necessary though, as we’re happy to do this for those who don’t have the time, ability, or expertise.

Good Reads

We do our best to maintain an updated list of book in our library, but it may occasionally be out of date by a day or two.

Books currently in Little Free Library #8424 can be found on our GoodReads bookshelf.

Books that have previously traveled through our library can be found on our outgoing shelf.

Donations

Books

We gladly accept your donated books – it’s part of what keeps the library a vital part of the community. Simply place your book donation directly into the library. It really is just that easy!

If you’d like to, please optionally write the titles of your donations into our guest book as this will help us to register them on Book Crossing. (You’re welcome to register them on book crossing yourself prior to donation as well – it’s free.) We try to put bookplates and Book Crossing ID numbers in all of our books to help ensure that your book remains a community and public donation in perpetuity. If you’d like to leave your name in the guest book as the donor of the book, feel free so we can credit you when registering it on Book Crossing as well as here on the site. You can always choose to remain anonymous, we respect that too.

If you have more books than the little library will currently hold, please don’t simply dump them! You can leave them in a covered box preferably on our stairs/landing – this will keep our sprinklers and the elements from ruining them – or you can contact me through Nextdoor.com. If the library has more books than will fit, we’ll occasionally rotate them to help improve the diversity and variety of the available collection over time.

Non-Book Donations

We also welcome donations of magazines, DVDs, Blue Ray Disks, Books On Tape (or CD) and other similar media one would find in a local library.

Financial Donations

Though we would prefer to have your patronage and your book donations, running the library on a voluntary basis is not a completely cost-free endeavor. Financial donations are also accepted, though our branch does not hold a tax exempt status.

Any financial donations will be used for general maintenance or upkeep (web hosting fees, bookplates, paint, hardware, etc.) for the library; for patron bonuses like bookmarks, dog treats, etc.; or even for discounted books to ensure library stock and selection. Directed donations are also welcome; please contact the library steward for details and discussion.

Wishlist

Those wishing to make donations can also opt to purchase items for the library’s Amazon.com wishlist, which typically includes items for capital improvement of the library.

Guest Book

Our library has guest book and a pen. Feel free to write down any thoughts, comments, or suggestions you might have about the library and leave them in the library for the associate librarians who happen by.

You’ll find a red composition book (and pen) inside our library where you can leave your thoughts and comments. Kindly leave the guest book in the library – it’s the one book we have that doesn’t circulate!

In some part, the guest book is meant to help catalog the progress of our library. Below are some suggestions for what you might write into our guest book when you visit:

• Patrons/Associate Librarians are encouraged to (optionally) write in the books they donate or check out.
• Say hello to your fellow neighbors! You can simply write down the day and time of your visit along with a note for future visitors.
• Bringing back a book? Feel free to write in a short review of the book you’re returning so others will know what they’re getting into. (If you give it a number of stars, be sure to indicate out of how many possible, so we know your scale.)
• Liked a book you borrowed? Flip back into the guest book to see who made the donation and write in a thank you to the donor.
• Have a book you’ve been longing for? Write it in and maybe a fellow neighbor has a copy they can donate on a future visit.
• Visiting our branch from far away? Be sure to write down your hometown and country  so we know how far away our books travel.
• Maybe you’re waxing poetic when stopping by? Feel free to write a short poem or haiku about our library.

Wish List

Our wish list has two functions:

1. Write down any books you’d love to see come to our library so you can borrow them in the future.
2. Read the list to see if you have any of the books you might donate so that others can enjoy them.

Fliers

We’re happy to host fliers/notices only for local community events.  The library is constructed of metal, so use a magnet (no tape, staples, glue, or permanent adhesives please) to attach your notice to the library. We ask that any fliers have a specific event date/time so that they may be easily removed once they’re over.  We also recommend posting on the community site Nextdoor. If you’re visiting from outside Adams Hill, try this link for a $25 Amazon.com gift card.

Please don’t leave any promotional/advertising items, business cards, or proselytizing material here as they will be removed. There are more effective places you can place these items.

Our Story

Want to know more about how we approached the Little Free Library concept and built this particular branch? We’ve written up a short piece on how it was built: Our Story.

Arrangement of Books

Since there isn’t a full time librarian and only so much space, there isn’t (usually) a set order to the arrangement of our books. Since it’s been a long trip up the hill, feel free to stop for a minute to cool off, consider yourself an associate librarian, and rearrange them to suit your whimsy – it is your library after all. We only ask that you try to keep any children’s books on the lower shelf for short legs and arms to be able to reach, and that your arrangement ensures all the books fit into the library just in case it rains.

Possible suggestions for arrangements might include:

• by size
• by color
• by the order in which you’ve read them
• by author’s first name
• by publication date
• by publisher or imprint
• by topic in reverse alphabetic order
• by best to worst (in your opinion or someone else’s)
• by those you’ve read and those you haven’t

The options are infinite, so be creative.

Prior Location (8/2015 – 9/2017)

Little Free Library Charter #8424 was originally located in the Adams Hill neighborhood of Glendale at 1411 Dartmouth Drive, Glendale, CA 91205 from it’s opening until September 2017 when it moved to its new location in Altadena. It had been located at the dog-leg on Dartmouth on the west side of the street. It was just west of S. Adams Street, roughly at the top of the hill.

Because it was located on a sharp corner, we recommended that users visiting by car, park for free in the neighborhood and walk the few feet to our library rather than stopping in the middle of the street which can block traffic or be a hazard.

Thanks for Visiting!