TISDALE — Taya and Ron Browning, a Tisdale couple, have made a “free little library” for people to swap their used books for some new material.
The structure installed in Tisdale’s Montgomery Park looks like a large bird house with a glass door, perched on a rod. The idea behind the structure is to allow people to deposit their beloved or unwanted books, movies, puzzles and games so they can be shared with others.
“You just take a book if you want. I have DVDs in there, puzzles as well because not everybody is a reader,” Taya said. “They just come take what they want, or if they have a surplus at home they don’t know what to do with, they drop them in there and leave it for someone else to enjoy.”
The idea for the box came from Facebook, where she seen others installed in cities like Prince Albert and Moose Jaw.
“It’s summer time. Lots of people are out and about and we have a lot of extra books. I stay home and homeschool for the kids, who have accumulated so much, and we thought maybe we could get rid of our books by blessing other people with them.”
For this project, they repurposed old dresser drawers for the base of the box, and the glass for the window was donated by Crystal Glass. The paint and shingles were leftovers the couple had laying around.
On the back of the box are quotes they wrote. One of them reads, “Abibliophobia: the fear of running out of reading material”.
“Yep, I feel that I have that fear as a homeschool mom,” Taya said. “I always need to have books for pleasure, and books for science and books for literature.”
The project took them a few hours spread across a couple days.
The next step for them was contacting the town, receiving permission to install it. The installation was assisted by a town employee.
“He told us where we could it, Ron and I dug it, and then we put it up.”
Taya’s goal is to spark a passion for reading in people.
“This is just out and about. It’s a novelty thing, it’s new, exciting – maybe it will spark somebody’s interest to read again just because they passed it in the park. They don’t have to go inside a building or worry about library fees.”
She said if the library is currently full and someone wishes to drop off some books, they can be given to the local A&W, which will allow the books to be placed in the box at a later time.
“Just come use it, read some books, enjoy it.”
