A confessed book lover, Morgan Jones, asked for a book nook library for her birthday, and her fiancé built her one.
She now has “Dot’s Book Nook” in front of their home at 719 Fourth Street South, named after her little wiener dog, Dot.
Morgan, who is an employee of the Southeast Regional Library, was inspired by a story in the Weyburn Review about a similar little library set up by WCS teacher Vanessa Flavel on Staveley Crescent, and thought it would be nice to have one for South Hill also.
When her fiancé, Daniel Kelly, asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she knew what she wanted, and they had most of the materials on hand for the library box and the books to start it off with. The post in the ground was the only part they didn’t have.
They looked at some of the designs of similar neighbourhood libraries, and the library box was made, complete with siding and shingles to protect the books from the elements.
The little library was installed on Labour Day, and she has had a pretty good response to it so far, noting that even on Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m., there were some local kids visiting it.
“We’ve had lots of kids coming by,” said Morgan, adding this is a good supplement for the public library, with the bonus that people can keep a book from her mini-library and not worry about fines.
“We still want people to go to the library,” she added, noting this is a way to have some books available up on the South Hill.
Morgan would like to see others spring up too, spread out around the city to encourage the love of reading in various neighbourhoods.
She has her mini-library registered with LittleFreeLibrary.org, like the one on Staveley and an additional one on McGillivray Drive. The website lists registered little libraries, and provide resources if people don’t have those available to them. She considered herself fortunate in that she has lots of books left from her growing up, and they had most of the materials on hand for building it.
