Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization that inspires a love of reading, builds community, and sparks creativity by fostering neighborhood book exchanges around the world. Through Little Free Libraries, millions of books are exchanged each year, profoundly increasing access to books for readers of all ages and backgrounds.
Little Free Library has fundamentally added character to neighborhoods around the Pacific Northwest and around the world. You can search their map of libraries worldwide here. I'm grateful to the organization for allowing me to use their library data for Portland Wild.
Unfortunately, the organization reported its founder Todd H. Bol (pdf) was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It's reported that he died October 18th, 2018.
Here's more from the organization:
Todd has spent much of the last decade working towards his vision of a world where neighbors know each other by name, and everyone has access to books. He is heartened by the thousands of Little Free Library stewards and friends like you who are dedicated to keeping the Little Free Library Sharing Network strong. It means a lot to Todd, his family, and all of us at the Little Free Library organization to hear from supporters during this difficult time. If you'd like to reach out to Todd, please do so on this page of our website.
We will also share updated information on that page. Please know that while our hearts are heavy, we remain dedicated to Little Free Library's mission, and we are deeply grateful for the support of friends like you.
The video below tells you about starting your own library. You can learn more about this from Little Free Library's website.
You can also buy beautiful pre-built libraries.
If you have ideas for how to improve Portland Wild, please visit our Feedback page. I'm interested in whether there are people interested in seeing responsible crowdsourcing on this site. I'm also interested in finding people that might wish to volunteer to improve the data and photos on the site.