I’m thinking about adding a community library to our space. Specifically 5 or 6 book cases full. If you’ve done something similar I’ve got a couple questions for you.
Neat!
I loved having a library in my old space.
We didn’t track who borrowed what, but I have a vague impression there’s some neato tech solution out there now.
One thing I saw recently that I LOVE was a tradition of asking new members to contribute a book to the collection when they join. You end up with an eclectic mix of books that people really love.
I’d caution, though: keep a tight lid on “donations” that are really just people dumping their old books on you. We had a hell of a time getting rid of old books (and cables and other random things) that people “donated” to our space.
Tony
On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 9:29 AM, Tyler Byrd [email protected] wrote:
I’m thinking about adding a community library to our space. Specifically 5 or 6 book cases full. If you’ve done something similar I’ve got a couple questions for you.
- Do you find it get’s much use?
- How to you track books and who has them? Software?
- Anything else I should know?
Thanks!
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We have done this.
It got more use than I expected, but not always in the ways expected. Lots of people checking a book out that were not regulars in the space. Also lots of people using as reference.
We used Delicious Library for a while with a scanner. It was still a pain in the ass. We stopped after about a year and just want to the honor system.
I echo Tony’s “donations” become a dumping ground of books that are useless (old tech books especially). Either be willing to aggressively throw out/donate useless books regardless of feelings or be careful about what you select.
Ultimately we moved to a more “digital” way of sharing books among the bibliophiles in the space. 
On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 9:29 AM, Tyler Byrd [email protected] wrote:
I’m thinking about adding a community library to our space. Specifically 5 or 6 book cases full. If you’ve done something similar I’ve got a couple questions for you.
- Do you find it get’s much use?
- How to you track books and who has them? Software?
- Anything else I should know?
Thanks!
–
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We’ve had a great library from early on.
(1) Does it get much use: Not as much as I would have expected. The main use it gets is to stack up books for members to put their monitors or laptops on (ugh).
(2) How do you track boosk: we just have a sheet on each bulletin board where member should write their name, the name and author of the book, the date they borrowed the book, and the date they returned the book. We’ve certainly lost some books that are dear to me (my bad keeping that kind of book in the space). We’ve also had a handful of non-members assume they can borrow books, which have been harder to track down. We also have a spreadsheet on the website where all members can see the list of books and sort or search by author, title, topic, location.
(3) anything else you should know:
My sense is that the main “pro” of having the library is the impression it gives (sort of like 24/7 access: people love that it’s there, even though very few people actually take advantage of it). It also adds a nice feel to the space that there are nice books on the shelves, and they do get browsed when folks are taking breaks from work, which is nice.
Cons: I actually put my entire collection of books in the space and there are a lot of books that were really expensive and are dear to me. It bugs me to see these books being primarily as monitor stands and not being put back where they were taken from. I guess I’m too attached to the books and for me they don’t get used enough or with enough love to be worth it. If you really care about the books, I’d think twice. If you don’t really care about them, then be careful to make sure they’re nice books worth having on the shelf or they don’t add much value in my opinion.
I would echo the other warnings about people dumping books. I don’t think people do it on purpose, it’s just that it’s hard to throw away books that once had great value, and “donating” them seems like it’s doing something good. But it’s worth being selective. For the most part, we’ve had great books donated to the space. But there are stacks of reference books that are completely obsolete that we’ve just recycled.
On Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 5:29:56 PM UTC+1, Tyler Byrd wrote:
I’m thinking about adding a community library to our space. Specifically 5 or 6 book cases full. If you’ve done something similar I’ve got a couple questions for you.
- Do you find it get’s much use?
- How to you track books and who has them? Software?
- Anything else I should know?
Thanks!
I’ll echo the other people saying
a) our collection of books doesn’t get used that much, and 90% of them are mine that I brought in from home anyway
b) people seem to use it as a way of dumping old tech books (10 years+ out of date) and claiming they are ‘contributing to the community’
c) many of the books are now in use as monitor stands, which I hate
to which I will add
d) many of the most decent books (ie my business/personal development/self help collection) have disappeared altogether
On Tuesday, 29 November 2016 16:29:56 UTC, Tyler Byrd wrote:
I’m thinking about adding a community library to our space. Specifically 5 or 6 book cases full. If you’ve done something similar I’ve got a couple questions for you.
- Do you find it get’s much use?
- How to you track books and who has them? Software?
- Anything else I should know?
Thanks!
We’ve had a community library at Cowork Frederick from day one (over four years ago).
It’s grown slowly over the years and now has a really nice diverse range of topics. It gets minimal use, but many people like the idea that we do this, so we do. If nothing else, it helps reinforce a culture of sharing.
Nothing should go on in the shared library that members are not willing to share and accept the risks that come with that. Our books have been used as monitor stands and that’s OK with us. At least they’re getting used. A recent caterer even used a bunch of them to create varied heights for platters of food. It looked really cool.
Our bookshelf isn’t full yet, but when it is our method for culling out books will be to pick a week when we give members 10 little stickers they can put on the books they want us to keep. Any books without stickers on them after that week will be donated to the public library, who will either use them or recycle them as they see fit, or could be used for some other creative purpose. If we ever do the expansion I long to do, I’ve contemplated creating quiet/phone rooms using books like bricks. I’ve also thought about decorating a wall with a collage of book covers. So many things can be done with these great assets.
As a side note, we also have a community office supply that has a take some leave some rule that has members keeping the community stocked on office supplies (we buy paper and printer cartridges, but that’s about it). It has, at times, become a dumping ground for odd stuff. We just freecycle what sits around for a long time without getting used.
Julia
On Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 11:29:56 AM UTC-5, Tyler Byrd wrote:
I’m thinking about adding a community library to our space. Specifically 5 or 6 book cases full. If you’ve done something similar I’ve got a couple questions for you.
- Do you find it get’s much use?
- How to you track books and who has them? Software?
- Anything else I should know?
Thanks!
Reflecting and building on what’s been said here (including the inherent problems with the community library) is that the issue with a community library, like most community resources, are most successful when there’s some degree of active ownership from the community, vs a passive “resource.”
I consider it a very good thing when people’s stuff is around, showing bits and clues about who the people in the community are, what they’re interested in, etc. It starts to make a place feel more like home, with an element of coziness and “lived in.” But there’s a fine line to be mindful of.
Knowing what I know now (and how many times we’ve had to find ways to get rid of stuff that was randomly left behind) I’m increasingly hesitant to ideas that start with "let’s just pool a bunch of stuff so that people can use it!’ Left to entropy, stuff becomes disorganized. Worse, over time, the line between “stuff” blurs into “junk” or “trash.” Clutter tends to attract more clutter. I’m actually way less worried about people not returning books than people dropping random stuff on the shelves that just takes up space.
No matter what you do, you’re going to be battling that entropy of stuff.
This isn’t to say that a community library is a bad idea - but it’s a more active undertaking than I think most people expect.
I’ve never found an organization who can accomplish this without some significant buy-in from the community to help with the organization and care-taking of a resources like this. That’s true of tool libraries, hacker/maker spaces, and even shared kitchens. I’ve seen variations of this - but the theme among the ones that succeed are that the solution is simple, and often, the core of the solution is a person (or people) and not technology.
Rather than go for a big collection of book cases, why not try something smaller and more focused? If you get it right on the smaller scale, you’ve got much better odds of figuring out how to scale it in a way that doesn’t cost you lots of unnecessary time and effort in the future.
-Alex
The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.
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On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 10:46 AM, Julia Ferguson [email protected] wrote:
We’ve had a community library at Cowork Frederick from day one (over four years ago).
It’s grown slowly over the years and now has a really nice diverse range of topics. It gets minimal use, but many people like the idea that we do this, so we do. If nothing else, it helps reinforce a culture of sharing.
Nothing should go on in the shared library that members are not willing to share and accept the risks that come with that. Our books have been used as monitor stands and that’s OK with us. At least they’re getting used. A recent caterer even used a bunch of them to create varied heights for platters of food. It looked really cool.
Our bookshelf isn’t full yet, but when it is our method for culling out books will be to pick a week when we give members 10 little stickers they can put on the books they want us to keep. Any books without stickers on them after that week will be donated to the public library, who will either use them or recycle them as they see fit, or could be used for some other creative purpose. If we ever do the expansion I long to do, I’ve contemplated creating quiet/phone rooms using books like bricks. I’ve also thought about decorating a wall with a collage of book covers. So many things can be done with these great assets.
As a side note, we also have a community office supply that has a take some leave some rule that has members keeping the community stocked on office supplies (we buy paper and printer cartridges, but that’s about it). It has, at times, become a dumping ground for odd stuff. We just freecycle what sits around for a long time without getting used.
Julia
On Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 11:29:56 AM UTC-5, Tyler Byrd wrote:
I’m thinking about adding a community library to our space. Specifically 5 or 6 book cases full. If you’ve done something similar I’ve got a couple questions for you.
- Do you find it get’s much use?
- How to you track books and who has them? Software?
- Anything else I should know?
Thanks!
–
Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Coworking” group.
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