Earlier this month, Children’s Librarian and town councillor Chris Norbury built a free book exchange in Steeprock for people to exchange books. Pick up a book that looks interesting, or drop off a book you’re done with.
“It is a challenge to actually pinpoint where and how I just came up with the idea,” says Norbury. “It certainly wasn’t an original idea, because I’ve seen them around. I think it was just a combination of seeing pictures on the Internet—I’m a part of a few library groups on Facebook on Reddit—as well as I’ve been to a couple of communities that have these great free little libraries.
So for the last year and a half or so, Norbury has been thinking about putting up a book exchange in town. “Six months ago I went to the Steeprock strata board—because I live in Steeprock—and I asked them if I could do it. And then last month we went down to Merritt, and I saw one outside of a park, and it was the most amazing thing, and I got to actually use it to get a book for baby Abigail. And it was like ‘wow this is so awesome.’ And so when we got back, I made my plan and went and started purchasing lumber and supplies.”
Norbury says he looked at plans for about 15 different projects like this, and watched how-to videos. “I wanted to do something that was simple, as I’ve never really build anything before. So I decided to buy a sheet of plywood, and then do some schematics. There some commonalities between all the exchanges like this, like they need to have an angled roof to keep the snow or rain from getting inside. And they need four walls, a roof, a bottom and a shelf. And I just drew a blueprint on a piece of paper, and then went to Home Hardware and bought the plywood, and then just use some hand-me-down tools that I got from a family member and muddled through it.
But while it was a good first building project for the budding handyman, he says what really motivated him was a desire to promote community literacy. “At the library, we’re about promoting literacy and promoting books and our love of books and all these things. This is another way I can do that, in a small way for the community. The free book exchange outside the library is extremely successful. And we do have people donate a lot of books to us. But there are times when the bookshelf gets a little overloaded so be good to have these alternate places that people can go to, because not everyone makes it into the library. It’s almost like a library outreach, a place where we can bring the library to the public at these little locations. Even though we can’t bring library books there, hopefully by promoting community literacy and just putting books in people’s hands we can grow literacy in our community and hopefully that will overflow into the library because we have a lot more books than this little book exchange.”
And while his intent is to promote the library and community literacy, he points out that this is not an official library project, just something that he has done out of his own love for books. “I think, the library has played a role in crystallizing my love of reading and my desire to bring literacy to the community.”
But no, you can’t return your overdue library books to the book exchange.
He says it’s hard to tell how well the place is being used, but he has noticed that some books are leaving the exchange. “From what I can tell people are very happy with it. I’ve seen positive comments on Facebook, and individuals, saying they want to go check it out.”
He says he knows Steeprock isn’t the most popular location in the community, but he wants to test it there and see how well it works. “I wanted it to be somewhere that I could be somewhat responsible for it. If there is vandalization, or if I wasn’t able to build it properly and I need to do touch ups, then I can do it. It’s pretty solid. I’m pretty impressed about how solid it is for my first ever project.”
But of course, the goal of the book exchange is not to have one on every corner. “I don’t want to take away from the public library is doing. But I know people are going to trade books, which is great. But the idea is to bring the community together, not create silos in different parts of the community. I want people to come to the library, and we want to bring your library to you.”
The initial books that were in the exchange came from Norbury’s personal collection, a mix of adult novels and kid’s books. “I’m hoping it will become community led after that.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
