On Saturday, September 24th, neighbours gathered on Haultain St. to cut the ribbon on the 650th little free library (LFL) in the CRD. It was built and installed by Marthinus and Lori de Wet, near the corner of Haultain St. and Scott St. in Victoria.
The LFL, dubbed the “Garden View LFL,” was built by Marthinus from salvaged and upcycled materials.
“I built this little library for my lovely wife because of her love of books. It’s also a great way to build community, something we both believe in. I built it out of recycled materials – the shingles on the roof are actually the original shingles from our home that was built in 1910,” said Marthinus.
The LFL is part of a broader placemaking project on the boulevard alongside Haultain St.
“We’ve been working on the boulevard garden for a few years, but really expanded it at the start of the pandemic as we started getting to know the neighbours better. We got a My Great Neighborhood Grant that Lifecycles helped administer, and volunteers as young as 7 helped plant the plants,” said neighbour Elizabeth Cronin. “We were inspired by some folks who put in a bench and a sign calling this the “friendship corner” years ago, and the neighbours across the street who grow sunflowers in the boulevard each year. When we work together and build on each other’s ideas we can make even small spaces feel special and shared.”
Little free libraries are small public book boxes that operate on the principle of ‘leave a book – take a book’ and they can be found throughout the CRD in all shapes and sizes. For the past five years, the Greater Victoria Placemaking Network (GVPN) has been mapping LFLs across the CRD and celebrating milestones as part of its Pocket Places Project. This project also helps people install their own LFLs and tops up collections with fresh books. To date, the project has helped set up over 100 LFLs, and delivered over 75,000 books to LFLs across the CRD, most of them delivered by bike.
“Little free libraries are like coral reefs. They create places for people to meet and interact, something that is critical to building and strengthening community,” said Teale Phelps Bondaroff, GVPN volunteer board member and Pocket Places Project Lead. “I’ve had a good number of friendships start with a chance encounter at a little free library. As we see more little free libraries spreading throughout the region, we create more spaces for community to flourish.”
“It’s inspiring to see the creativity of people in the region,” said Phelps Bondaroff, who maintains the GVPNs LFL map and tops up about 30 LFLs around the region by bike each week. “There is such a marvellous diversity of little free libraries around the region. Not only are there little free libraries dedicated to children’s books and poetry, but we now have a growing number of little seed libraries, boxes for puzzles, art supplies, toys and household items, seeds, plants, and more!”
The full map of all 650+ LFLs in Victoria can be found here:
