Little Free Library installed in Harlem Twp.

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Imag­ine liv­ing in Harlem Town­ship and want­ing to read a book your­self, or one of your chil­dren wants to read a book, but you’ve already read every­thing in the house. A trip to dis­tant Com­mu­nity Library in Sun­bury is not pos­si­ble in the time frame you have, or it’s late and Com­mu­nity Library is already closed for the day.

That’s no longer a prob­lem for Harlem Town­ship res­i­dents, thanks to a lit­tle effort and invest­ment on Karen Dodson’s part. Dod­son pur­chased and installed a Lit­tle Free Library near the Harlem Town­ship Main­te­nance Build­ing, next to the Harlem Bul­letin Board and the Harlem Park swings.

Lit­tle Free Library is an inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tion with a mis­sion to pro­mote lit­er­acy and the love of read­ing by build­ing free book exchanges world­wide. The Lit­tle Free Library goal is to build more than 2,510 Lit­tle Free Libraries around the world, more than phil­an­thropist Andrew Carnegie did.

“I first read about Lit­tle Free Library a cou­ple of years ago,” Dod­son said. “I bought the box for $300, $25 ship­ping, and $25 to reg­is­ter it as Harlem Town­ship Lit­tle Free Library Char­ter Num­ber 2068.”

Of course, Dod­son didn’t just install the Lit­tle Free Library on town­ship prop­erty with­out per­mis­sion. She approached the Harlem Town­ship Trustees who, she said, approved the idea very quickly.

Dod­son said the Lit­tle Free Library con­cept is sim­ple — take a book and leave a book. That way the library always has a selec­tion of family-friendly books from adult read­ing mat­ter to children’s books.

“I’m the library stew­ard,” Dod­son said. “I will be check­ing on it to make sure the read­ing mate­r­ial is appro­pri­ate and it’s being taken care of. But the Lit­tle Free Library really belongs to every­one in the Harlem Town­ship com­mu­nity; every mem­ber of this com­mu­nity will be care­tak­ers of our library.”

Dod­son said she rec­om­mends that folks leav­ing books at the Harlem Town­ship Lit­tle Free Library leave notes inside the books.

“If you see some­thing you like, take it and read it and also see who else has read it and what they thought about it,” Dod­son said. “I like books; you can take them any­where, they can take you any­where. When you leave a note you can tell some­one else where a book took you.”

Dod­son also noted that the Lit­tle Free Library was ini­tially stocked with books found in the town­ship dump­ster by Vicki Tieche, and children’s books donated by Half-Price Books in Westerville.

Lit­tle Free Libraries are rare in Ohio. The Harlem Town­ship Lit­tle Free Library is one of eight in the state. Cen­tral Ohio seems to be a Lit­tle Free Library hot spot, with other libraries in Colum­bus, Pow­ell and Westerville.

Dod­son said there would be occa­sional main­te­nance and restock­ing costs. To con­tribute to the Harlem Town­ship Lit­tle Free Library send dona­tions to Karen Dod­son, 12600 Gor­such Road, Galena, 43021.

For addi­tional Lit­tle Free Library fundrais­ing Harlem Town­ship Her­itage, Inc. is offer­ing two books of short, fan­tasy sto­ries writ­ten by Cana­dian school chil­dren between the ages of 10 and 16. These books, Hatch­ings and Fledg­lings are offered for $3 each or the set for $5. For addi­tional infor­ma­tion, or to order, call Dod­son at 740–965-4800.

As an added note, the Harlem Town­ship Lit­tle Free Library is not the first library in Harlem Town­ship. Dod­son said before the turn of the 20th cen­tury there was a Cen­ter Vil­lage Library.

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion about the inter­na­tional Lit­tle Free Library con­cept go to < littlefreelibrary.org >.

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.