We have one of these near our house — a block and a half away. It’s been there for a few months now. We pass it frequently when doing short neighborhood walks. The contents are not impressive — mostly thrillers and romance novels, a very occasional literary novel (e.g. Annie Proulx) or semi-science fiction book (Lois Lowry). And not much change-over, that I notice, from week to week. In the photo here it’s at the right edge.
So yesterday I decided to try an experiment — put some unusual book there, and then check back every couple days to see if anyone takes it. As it happens, I would normally never loan a book to anyone — loaned books have a way of never coming back — but I do have a couple hundred books in the garage I’ve been meaning to get rid of. All old and minor anthologies, mostly of original stories, that I was sent, or even bought, back in the 1980s and ’90s when I was reviewing short stories for Locus Magazine. And which I will surely have no use for ever again. Couldn’t find something among them to give up?
I did fairly quickly, not an anthology per se, but a single-author collection. It jumped out at me because 1) the author, Howard Waldrop, is an eccentric, almost niche author in the sf/fantasy field, but highly respected, and 2) for whatever reasons I don’t recall, I have three copies of the book. So I’ll donate one of them for the experiment!
Here are three more photos of the book, and the library box before and after.
I posted about this on Facebook earlier today, and got a comment from a friend there that when he takes a book, he returns a different one, just to keep things circulating. That hadn’t occurred to me. Isn’t that contrary to the typical practices of libraries…?
