A Calgary woman is remaining hopeful that a Little Free Library that had been set up outside her home for seven years will be returned.
Pamela McLean lives in Renfrew and nearly eight years ago, gave her daughters an assembled mini library for Christmas after the girls had seen the idea on the social media site Tumblr.
The girls. who were 16 and 19 at the time, painted and decorated it and they set it up outside their home that summer and filled it with books. It was the start of a wonderful community gathering place that brought all kinds of people together over the past seven years.
“It’s been a delight to see how many people come by to use it,” McLean told Global News on Friday.
McLean said she was surprised, bemused and downright confused when she took the recycling out on Wednesday morning and saw the little library was gone from its post. A sign now replaces it that reads, “After seven years of sharing with you, our library has been STOLEN. Please keep a lookout for it!”
“The big thing is, when I went out and looked… I did a real double take because it’s been there for so long that it looks like a hole in my view,” McLean said.
“There should be a little library there! It’s bemusing. As far as I know, there is not a hot market for used free little libraries.”
McLean said whoever stole the library would have had to unscrew each of the four screws that held it to the post. She said after realizing it had been taken, she took out her step stool and went through the neighbourhood alleys, peeking in the large garbage bins to see if whoever took it might have ditched it nearby.
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McLean said the little library had become somewhat of a community staple, so much so that a couple years ago, she and her husband took it a step further and bought a bench and placed it across the sidewalk from the library so people can come by, pick a book and read under their large spruce tree.
“It’s a really nice part of being well rooted in the neighbourhood and interacting with the people that walk by,” she said.
“We’re right on the way to Stanley Jones school, so we get a lot of children with their parents, walking them to school.
“There are a lot of immigrant and refugee children who come past, so I make a point of making sure that there’s a lot of good English children’s books in there that they can use.”
McLean said her daughters were also surprised to hear of the strange theft, but are looking at it as an opportunity to be creative again with a new one. She said they’ll wait until after Easter to see if the library is returned and if not, she will start work on a replacement.
“It’s not going to stop us from having a Little Free Library,” she said.
McLean remembered back to the first week the library was set up, when she’d gone out to find a note from a bottle picker that frequented their neighbourhood who said he was leaving them his favourite book for someone else to read.
“They’re for everybody,” McLean said.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re an oil company executive or whether you make your living by picking up pop bottles, we’re all interested in reading good stories.”