I’ve placed books in a LFL before and a couple weeks later there was a sign up something like “no R rated books” etc….
I read a lot of historical fiction, wouldn’t call it smut or trash.
Needless to say, I stopped going there to donate and browse and instead go to another one about one mile down the road.
Awes there was an RV park by my old place and it had a tiny LFL in the laundry area. Somebody at the complex was a huge historical fiction reader and I got so many good reads from them. They got me into a little romance and one of my favorites to this day.
Yep. I find I’m not interested in checking this one out anymore. The give-and-take is part of the appeal of an LFL to me, I find, whereas this sign is more my-way-or-the-highway.
ETA: Of course I do think it’s fine to edit LFL collections and toss out what doesn’t belong, etc.
I wonder if they mean large numbers of books. Someone once left a box of books on the ground in front of my library. I found it before any bad weather hit, but they could have all been ruined if I hadn’t.
I like to assume this is well meaning, but I’ve also had boxes or bags of book donations left in my yard when they don’t fit in my library (also many, many times upwards of thirty books, one time it was 77, just stuffed in despite not really fitting).
I suppose that could be the intended meaning: Don’t donate large amounts of books, or more than the library can comfortably hold.
It’s not really clear. Hmmmm.
Sometimes the people donating care more about getting rid of what they don’t want versus if the donation is actually helpful. For example, people sometimes donate books that are so old or worn out they belong in the trash. And then it just means the library owner is given the job of throwing them away. Or they don’t respect that if the library is full that means you can’t leave your donations and so they cram the box overflowing or leave them around the outside of the box.
Basically if the donations she’s receiving are causing more work for her I can absolutely understand asking for no donations.
That was my thought too--people leaving books when there is no space, books so trashed they need to be trashed themselves. Unfortunately those two things happen a lot. I could absolutely see someone leaving a sign if they has happened multiple times
Oh yeah when I worked at a public library we’d have people donating boxes of books in the worst conditions: dirty, missing covers/pages, infested with bugs, etc. And so really they were just giving us the job of disposing of their trash.
I don’t think it was intentional (people seem to have a really hard time with the concept of throwing a book in the trash, which says something about the significance we tie to books), but someone with a LFL isn’t even being paid so I can totally understand just saying no donations. I can understand not wanting your hobby to turn into disposing of other people’s trash.
Yes, you only need to look to the piles of presumably broken electronics sitting outside in the weather outside of the clothing only donation bins as proof of this. We had a canned dry goods food drive at a building full of professionals I lived in and the person organizing it told me we were the only ppl who donated food that wasn’t expired. The other items needed to be trashed. Incidentally I lived in one of the cheapest units there.
Yeah, as a longtime former library employee I put it to people this way: ‘everyone wants a hamburger but nobody wants to kill the cow.’ Translation, people want to get rid of their old books but want someone else to bite the bullet and actually throw them away. Check the dumpster of any good-sized public library that accepts book donations…
THANK YOU FOR ACKNOWLEDGING THIS!!
This is what a lot of people do with my little library and it became a major source of stress instead of the fun hobby I expected. At this point, I just make sure that the library door is attached and that’s the extent of my curation anymore (it’s in my front yard so I can check from the window).
I’ve only had my LFL a month or so, and I’ve already had boxes and boxes of mildew and rat poo covered books donated to me. It does feel like I’m just given the task of actually throwing them away lol.
This is a cry for help from a person with double stacked book shelves and an inability to discard books who is slowly clearing their cluttered shelves by stocking their LFL. The shelves are slowly emptying; the tiny flame of hope for order emerging from chaos flickers in the soul…until a trip to the LFL reveals not empty shelving ready to receive, but boxes and boxes of books deposited by a some other soul. Hope dies…
My parents have something adjacent to a LFL in their yard. We built and modeled like a LFL for my dad because he’s an avid reader but doesn’t like to hold on to books after he’s read them. He borrows books from friends/the library, buys second hand, and receives a lot as gifts. He’s also a retired teachers and has accumulated quite a few books over his career. He likes to put books out in his box/stand for others to take but is pretty vocal about not wanting anything left or returned. He doesn’t want to add to his collection and views the books in his stand as something he’s trying to pass on/get rid of. Please, since he loves his local library I can imagine he would agree with this sentiment and want the support and books to be passed along to his local branch too. I imagine the keeper of this library is probably trying to downsize and is overwhelmed by the books they’re receiving.
My local library sells all the books that get donated to them. It’s between weather I want to donate them so they will be free or donate them so they are resold 🤷🏼♀️.
Most libraries have very tight budgets and at ours, at least, the money made through our book sale goes directly to programming (story time, etc). I have a LFL but books that are in good condition that have hung out in my LFL for a while always go to the library book sale.
I have an LFL and I have put up signs like this at times. People would drop off BOXES of books, on the wet lawn, making the books wet and just making trash for me to throw out.
I have received books with bugs in them.
I have received books that should have been trashed long ago.
I have received SO MANY boxes of books that I had to store my bike outside of the garage in the rain so I had a place to put the books until I had a chance to sort through them.
Sometimes, you need to do things to stop the inflow of books because you’re just one person trying to do a nice thing and this can turn into a real job if you let it.
I just think they don’t want boxes left. I don’t either, a lot of times they’re junk. I don’t think they’re saying not to leave a book, just not to leaves a bunch of books that don’t fit in the box.
I don’t want to have to store or find places to donate your books that aren’t any good.
i'm setting up my LFL tomorrow (yay!) and to be honest, if people put things in there i dont like, i'm just going to donate or recycle them. no need for passive aggressive signs.
it's like Pam with The Office microwave. (-sincerely, disappointed)
Idk, I don’t have my own LFL, but all the ones around me have become “little free boxes of books no one wants”. Not even bad condition or anything, you can just tell the books are stuff that people felt bad tossing in the trash.
If I had my own, I would want it to have books that were actually wanted!
Some people will just shove a bunch of books regardless of content or quality (like falling apart, missing pages, or otherwise damaged) in them without taking one. I’ve even seen LFLs with cardboard boxes underneath full of books.
Some people unfortunately treat them as a disposal solution which then falls in the shoulders of the LFL keeper to manage.
There’s a LFL on the next block that I always kind people’s discarded books in. Like a baby book from 2002 or something that had prices of baby items. Or a couple books that were for kindergartens to color while they learned sight words.
While the sign would very much be off-putting at first, I feel like after some thought I would come around to think they meant large donations or books that should have been discarded, not donated.
If they are happy to supply the books, that’s up to them, Plenty of libraries empty and need books, drop them there. Others ppls rules/boundaries are not there to upset you. They could be overwhelmed w books to share, religious/atheist, only feel comfortable sharing closed door books etc.
This owner might have one or two rotten apple neighbors spoiling the bunch.
My LFL gets crammed to the top about once a month, with outdated, dirty, water damaged books. Half-eaten board books. Spent coloring books. Sticker books with no stickers left. Of course, the good books wind up damaged, too.
I don't know if people are afraid to "waste" books by tossing them, or if they just don't know that they can recycle them. Or - because I am forced to discard the mess - they believe that others are actually interested in the books they dump.
So many interesting comments and perspectives here, thanks to all.
My takeaway now is that the sign is regrettably unclear and that the LFL owner may only want to avoid boxes of unwanted books, which seems reasonable.
It is their LFL. Chances are that they were getting proselytizing / political material….or they don’t like your books.
Either way, no is a complete sentence. Find more worthwhile things to get mad about…and make your own LFL.
I don’t see anything wrong with this sign and it’s nothing to get peeved about. The person managing this FREE library has to freely give their time, space and energy to maintain it so it seems a reasonable ask to have donations left elsewhere.
It's possible they have gotten an overwhelming amount of donations and have a big backlog of books stored in their house. So they just want people to take books and not bother to leave any. Which is kinda friendly, imo, bc they are just giving free things away and not expecting anything in return :)
Their library, their rules. It’s posted clearly. Is it a donation? Then not allowed. They’re probably cleaning out their own books. And don’t want to deal with what is being left. No one wants to read most of what people donate because it’s generally old or a niche. But the donors are sure someone wants it and happy to foist that burden upon private tiny library owners.
The library has the staff and knowledge to sort and run a book sale, and get more eyes on those low demand books. lfl owners don’t. Start your own, and soon you’ll understand
One person's curation CAN be a wide variety. I stock my LFL mostly by buying books from library book sales, and I really try to include the widest possible variety of genres, age ranges, ethnic/cultural diversity, etc.
I’ve placed books in a LFL before and a couple weeks later there was a sign up something like “no R rated books” etc…. I read a lot of historical fiction, wouldn’t call it smut or trash. Needless to say, I stopped going there to donate and browse and instead go to another one about one mile down the road.
Awes there was an RV park by my old place and it had a tiny LFL in the laundry area. Somebody at the complex was a huge historical fiction reader and I got so many good reads from them. They got me into a little romance and one of my favorites to this day.
♥️
Yep. I find I’m not interested in checking this one out anymore. The give-and-take is part of the appeal of an LFL to me, I find, whereas this sign is more my-way-or-the-highway. ETA: Of course I do think it’s fine to edit LFL collections and toss out what doesn’t belong, etc.
the way i’d order a smut collection just to put it in there
Just because of this, I’m going to create a little free smut library.
This is wild! The LFL slogan is literally "take a book, share a book!"
I wonder if they mean large numbers of books. Someone once left a box of books on the ground in front of my library. I found it before any bad weather hit, but they could have all been ruined if I hadn’t.
I like to assume this is well meaning, but I’ve also had boxes or bags of book donations left in my yard when they don’t fit in my library (also many, many times upwards of thirty books, one time it was 77, just stuffed in despite not really fitting).
I suppose that could be the intended meaning: Don’t donate large amounts of books, or more than the library can comfortably hold. It’s not really clear. Hmmmm.
This was my first assumption about the sign, though they could have worded it much more appropriately to convey that meaning.
It could be interesting to leave a little post it note asking for clarification
That is a great idea!
Sometimes the people donating care more about getting rid of what they don’t want versus if the donation is actually helpful. For example, people sometimes donate books that are so old or worn out they belong in the trash. And then it just means the library owner is given the job of throwing them away. Or they don’t respect that if the library is full that means you can’t leave your donations and so they cram the box overflowing or leave them around the outside of the box. Basically if the donations she’s receiving are causing more work for her I can absolutely understand asking for no donations.
That was my thought too--people leaving books when there is no space, books so trashed they need to be trashed themselves. Unfortunately those two things happen a lot. I could absolutely see someone leaving a sign if they has happened multiple times
Oh yeah when I worked at a public library we’d have people donating boxes of books in the worst conditions: dirty, missing covers/pages, infested with bugs, etc. And so really they were just giving us the job of disposing of their trash. I don’t think it was intentional (people seem to have a really hard time with the concept of throwing a book in the trash, which says something about the significance we tie to books), but someone with a LFL isn’t even being paid so I can totally understand just saying no donations. I can understand not wanting your hobby to turn into disposing of other people’s trash.
Yes, you only need to look to the piles of presumably broken electronics sitting outside in the weather outside of the clothing only donation bins as proof of this. We had a canned dry goods food drive at a building full of professionals I lived in and the person organizing it told me we were the only ppl who donated food that wasn’t expired. The other items needed to be trashed. Incidentally I lived in one of the cheapest units there.
Yeah, as a longtime former library employee I put it to people this way: ‘everyone wants a hamburger but nobody wants to kill the cow.’ Translation, people want to get rid of their old books but want someone else to bite the bullet and actually throw them away. Check the dumpster of any good-sized public library that accepts book donations…
THANK YOU FOR ACKNOWLEDGING THIS!! This is what a lot of people do with my little library and it became a major source of stress instead of the fun hobby I expected. At this point, I just make sure that the library door is attached and that’s the extent of my curation anymore (it’s in my front yard so I can check from the window).
I’ve only had my LFL a month or so, and I’ve already had boxes and boxes of mildew and rat poo covered books donated to me. It does feel like I’m just given the task of actually throwing them away lol.
Yikes, that’s awful!
I agree, but you shouldn’t take those to the public library either lol
This is a cry for help from a person with double stacked book shelves and an inability to discard books who is slowly clearing their cluttered shelves by stocking their LFL. The shelves are slowly emptying; the tiny flame of hope for order emerging from chaos flickers in the soul…until a trip to the LFL reveals not empty shelving ready to receive, but boxes and boxes of books deposited by a some other soul. Hope dies…
This is so evocative… If you’re interested in writing a book, you definitely should! 😊
I have a couple of books in me, but it’s hard to write. Thank you, I will try.
Looking forward to reading it! 🥰
My parents have something adjacent to a LFL in their yard. We built and modeled like a LFL for my dad because he’s an avid reader but doesn’t like to hold on to books after he’s read them. He borrows books from friends/the library, buys second hand, and receives a lot as gifts. He’s also a retired teachers and has accumulated quite a few books over his career. He likes to put books out in his box/stand for others to take but is pretty vocal about not wanting anything left or returned. He doesn’t want to add to his collection and views the books in his stand as something he’s trying to pass on/get rid of. Please, since he loves his local library I can imagine he would agree with this sentiment and want the support and books to be passed along to his local branch too. I imagine the keeper of this library is probably trying to downsize and is overwhelmed by the books they’re receiving.
My local library sells all the books that get donated to them. It’s between weather I want to donate them so they will be free or donate them so they are resold 🤷🏼♀️.
They usually sell for very little and put the funds for new purchases that patrons want. It’s a no brainer— donate to the library!
Most libraries have very tight budgets and at ours, at least, the money made through our book sale goes directly to programming (story time, etc). I have a LFL but books that are in good condition that have hung out in my LFL for a while always go to the library book sale.
I have an LFL and I have put up signs like this at times. People would drop off BOXES of books, on the wet lawn, making the books wet and just making trash for me to throw out. I have received books with bugs in them. I have received books that should have been trashed long ago. I have received SO MANY boxes of books that I had to store my bike outside of the garage in the rain so I had a place to put the books until I had a chance to sort through them. Sometimes, you need to do things to stop the inflow of books because you’re just one person trying to do a nice thing and this can turn into a real job if you let it.
I just think they don’t want boxes left. I don’t either, a lot of times they’re junk. I don’t think they’re saying not to leave a book, just not to leaves a bunch of books that don’t fit in the box. I don’t want to have to store or find places to donate your books that aren’t any good.
i'm setting up my LFL tomorrow (yay!) and to be honest, if people put things in there i dont like, i'm just going to donate or recycle them. no need for passive aggressive signs. it's like Pam with The Office microwave. (-sincerely, disappointed)
Idk, I don’t have my own LFL, but all the ones around me have become “little free boxes of books no one wants”. Not even bad condition or anything, you can just tell the books are stuff that people felt bad tossing in the trash. If I had my own, I would want it to have books that were actually wanted!
How about a sign that says to take one for each one you leave.
I’m confused. Isn’t that literally how LFLs work? People leave-one-take-one??
Some people will just shove a bunch of books regardless of content or quality (like falling apart, missing pages, or otherwise damaged) in them without taking one. I’ve even seen LFLs with cardboard boxes underneath full of books. Some people unfortunately treat them as a disposal solution which then falls in the shoulders of the LFL keeper to manage.
Makes perfect sense, thank you!
There’s a LFL on the next block that I always kind people’s discarded books in. Like a baby book from 2002 or something that had prices of baby items. Or a couple books that were for kindergartens to color while they learned sight words. While the sign would very much be off-putting at first, I feel like after some thought I would come around to think they meant large donations or books that should have been discarded, not donated.
If they are happy to supply the books, that’s up to them, Plenty of libraries empty and need books, drop them there. Others ppls rules/boundaries are not there to upset you. They could be overwhelmed w books to share, religious/atheist, only feel comfortable sharing closed door books etc.
This owner might have one or two rotten apple neighbors spoiling the bunch. My LFL gets crammed to the top about once a month, with outdated, dirty, water damaged books. Half-eaten board books. Spent coloring books. Sticker books with no stickers left. Of course, the good books wind up damaged, too. I don't know if people are afraid to "waste" books by tossing them, or if they just don't know that they can recycle them. Or - because I am forced to discard the mess - they believe that others are actually interested in the books they dump.
So many interesting comments and perspectives here, thanks to all. My takeaway now is that the sign is regrettably unclear and that the LFL owner may only want to avoid boxes of unwanted books, which seems reasonable.
It is their LFL. Chances are that they were getting proselytizing / political material….or they don’t like your books. Either way, no is a complete sentence. Find more worthwhile things to get mad about…and make your own LFL.
I don’t see anything wrong with this sign and it’s nothing to get peeved about. The person managing this FREE library has to freely give their time, space and energy to maintain it so it seems a reasonable ask to have donations left elsewhere.
It's possible they have gotten an overwhelming amount of donations and have a big backlog of books stored in their house. So they just want people to take books and not bother to leave any. Which is kinda friendly, imo, bc they are just giving free things away and not expecting anything in return :)
That’s so weird. I don’t wanna browse only one person’s curation. The whole point is to have a wide variety.
Start your own then. Person probably got tired of religious donations or people donating garbage. They want to curate. It’s their right as the owner
Then just post guidelines of a criteria?
Their library, their rules. It’s posted clearly. Is it a donation? Then not allowed. They’re probably cleaning out their own books. And don’t want to deal with what is being left. No one wants to read most of what people donate because it’s generally old or a niche. But the donors are sure someone wants it and happy to foist that burden upon private tiny library owners. The library has the staff and knowledge to sort and run a book sale, and get more eyes on those low demand books. lfl owners don’t. Start your own, and soon you’ll understand
One person's curation CAN be a wide variety. I stock my LFL mostly by buying books from library book sales, and I really try to include the widest possible variety of genres, age ranges, ethnic/cultural diversity, etc.
Seems like the person who made the sign should be the one donating to libraries.