Alice Mills smiles as she looks at the box that sits on her lawn in Hutchinson, Kansas, an act of kindness for neighbors and the community. Inside the box is a miniature library. Books sit on two shelves; the bottom with short stories for children and the top with novels for adults. After her children grew up and moved away from home, they took the books they wanted with them. The rest sat on a bookshelf collecting dust. “If they’re here, they’re not being read,” Mills says.

The concept for the Little Free Library began in 2009 to promote literacy and the love of reading, as well as to build a sense of community, according to LittleFreeLibrary.org. They are now popping up around the world in the United States, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Pakistan, Spain, Turkey and the Congo.

A recent Pew Internet & American Life Project survey shows that Americans strongly value the role of public libraries in their communities, both for providing access to materials and resources and for promoting literacy and improving the overall quality of life. More than half used a public library in a one-year period, and 72 percent say they live in a “library household”. Most Americans say they have only had positive experiences at public libraries and value a range of library resources and services. National Library Week begins April 13.

Contributing source: HutchNews.com