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By Cari Hyden

Looking for a good book to read? Have you just finished a riveting volume that you’d like to share with others?

UNTHSC just opened its second Little Free Library. It’s in the Lewis Library lobby, near the Java Lab. There you can feel free to pick up a book to read. Then next time you pass by, you can return the book you borrowed – or replace it with another book you think others might enjoy. Members of the local community also can use the Little Free Library.

Kim Williams, Assistant to the Chair, Physician Assistant Studies, got the project going. She had been using a Little Free Library at Tarrant County College.

“I wanted everyone on the UNTHSC campus to have the same benefit,” she said. “I wanted to ‘be the change that I wanted to see in the world.’”

The FUN Club, dedicated to Facilitating Unity and Networking, agreed to sponsor the library.

“We felt this could be a way to promote unity and networking through literacy,” said DeVetra Patrick, Room Scheduling Coordinator and Chairwoman for the FUN Club. “It’s a gathering place where employees can share their favorite literature and stories. Making reading a part of people’s everyday routines can help them to be thoughtful, engaged employees, and the Little Free Library provides a benefit to the UNTHSC community.”

Williams got permission from Dan Burgard, Lewis Library Executive Director, and from Seth Willmoth, Executive Director in Facilities Management. Then Jack Thetford, Construction Foreman, and Rob Tong, Signage Coordinator, got to work building the Little Free Library.

“All you need to do is place a thought in Rob’s brain and it starts racing,” Thetford said.

“I just cut the parts for the house, and Rob engraved bricks and shingles on them,” Thetford said.

Tong used his laser signage equipment to “carve” books for the base.

The original Little Free Library on campus is located in the UNTHSC Community Garden at 3621 W. Seventh St. This library was provided by an Eagle Scout as part of a community service project.

Little Free Libraries started in 2009 as a way for founder Todd H. Bol to honor his mother, a schoolteacher. He placed the structure in his front yard and saw the “take a book, share a book” concept become popular with his neighbors. So he co-founded a nonprofit organization to bring Little Free Libraries to communities throughout the world.

Today, more than 80,000 Little Free Libraries are registered in 91 countries. Learn more.

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