“I Can’t Have That in There”: Little Free Library Stewards and Intellectual Freedom

Kozak, Nadine I.

doi:10.1086/703466

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…They suggest that LFLs can, in some cases, be grassroots efforts mitigating urban problems, while in other cases LFLs can also "reinforce existing and developing spatial inequalities" (p. 249). Most recently, Kozak (2019) interviewed LFL stewards in Wisconsin and suggests some are willing to actively censor material that does not fit with their values while others are more aligned with the selection and deselection guidelines followed by public libraries. These discussions and analyses are not limited to North America.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bondi (2020) examined three LFLs across two neighborhoods in Canada and did not catalog titles. Kozak (2019) conducted 14 interviews across six urban and suburban communities surrounding a medium-sized city in the Midwest. No books were cataloged.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a community driven resource, one might assume each exchange could reflect the reading preferences of its users and steward. There is evidence that LFL stewards curate books in their LFLs (Kozak, 2019) and media stories suggest many other people interact with each LFL. Olson Beal and Burrow (2017) specifically mention making a deliberate choice to stock an LFL with juvenile books.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…LFLs have attracted the attention from both researchers and librarians because of their ubiquity. In the last decade, the value and role of LFLs and their relationship to public libraries has been debated in the literature (Bondi, 2020; Kozak, 2019; Olson Beal and Burrow, 2017; Sarmiento et al, 2018; Schmidt and Hale, 2017) while being cast in a positive light in media (e.g. Burke, 2017; Groves, 2012; Lacitis, 2012; Mattern, 2012; Worland, 2011) and library field periodicals (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What’s in a book exchange: Examining contents in relation to steward intentions, geography, and public library collections

Mckenna-Foster

Roseen²

2022

Journal of Librarianship and Information Science

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In the last decade, book exchanges, most prominently those registered with the Little Free Library® network, have attracted the interest of researchers and media alike. Very little is known about what types of books are available in these book exchanges and how their collections compare to those in public libraries. To address this gap in knowledge, we selected a random sample of 42 Little Free Libraries across eight Seattle neighborhoods to inventory their contents. We interviewed the stewards about their stocking and weeding practices. Our inventory shows that most of the books available in Little Free Libraries are children’s, mystery, suspense, self-help/health, and scifi/fantasy books published in the last 10–30 years. Neighborhoods in our sample ranged in socioeconomic and racial diversity measures, but there were no significant differences in LFL contents related to those measures. We also compared our inventory to the collections of nearby public library branches and found Little Free Libraries offer a complementary rather than competitive selection scenario: books in LFLs are generally older, with a lesser proportion of children’s books and higher proportion of fiction books.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What’s in a book exchange: Examining contents in relation to steward intentions, geography, and public library collections

Mckenna-Foster

Roseen²

2022

Journal of Librarianship and Information Science

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“…Public librarians tend to dismiss any concerns about the disposal of older books by noting that theirs are not “archival” collections and these older books can often be obtained through interlibrary loan or other means (Brown, 2001). The rise of little free libraries may represent an alternative approach to the public’s desire to have easy access to older titles, though this presents different problems (Kozak, 2019; Schmidt and Hale, 2017).…”

Section: The Weeding Policies Problematicmentioning

confidence: 99%

The pragmatics of weeding

Martens

2021

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PurposeThe purpose of this research is to investigate the language of “weeding” (library deselection) within public library collection development policies in order to examine whether such policies and practices can be usefully connected to library and information science (LIS) theory, specifically to “Deweyan pragmatic adaptation” as suggested by Buschman (2017) in the pages of this journal.Design/methodology/approachThis is a policy analysis of collection deselection policies from the 50 public libraries serving US state capitals, using Bacchi’s policy problem representation technique.Findings“Weeding” as described by these public library collection deselection policies is clearly pragmatic and oriented to increasing circulation to patrons, but the “Deweyan pragmatic adaptation” as reflected by many of those reviewed might better be defined as the pragmatism of Melvil Dewey rather than that of John Dewey.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough this work reviewed policies from a very small sample of US public libraries, collection, selection and deselection language as shown in the policies studied appear to be consistent with neoliberal priorities and values in terms of prioritizing “circulation” and “customers,” which may have additional implications for the current transition from print to electronic materials in public librariesOriginality/valueJohn Dewey’s political philosophy and Carol Bacchi’s policy problem representation technique have not been widely used in policy analysis by LIS researchers, and this paper offers a number of suggestions for similar public library policy investigations.

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Reflections on a “media darling”: Debunking naive claims of universal 24/7 access to Little Free Libraries (LFLs)

Houghton

Gunderson

Gautam

2021

Journal of Access Services

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“I Can’t Have That in There”: Little Free Library Stewards and Intellectual Freedom

Cited by 4 publications

References 12 publications

What’s in a book exchange: Examining contents in relation to steward intentions, geography, and public library collections

What’s in a book exchange: Examining contents in relation to steward intentions, geography, and public library collections

The pragmatics of weeding

Reflections on a “media darling”: Debunking naive claims of universal 24/7 access to Little Free Libraries (LFLs)

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