‘I want to see people reading’: Couple add to Plum’s Little Free Library offerings

Plum’s latest Little Free Library comes courtesy of a former teacher with a simple mission:

“I want to see people reading.”

In other words, Janice Murphy would like to encourage folks to share her interest.

“I just love to read,” she said. “If I don’t have a book going, I get depressed.”

Her spirits are soaring, though, following the mid-April installation of a handsome repository in front of her Greendale Drive home, the handiwork of her husband, Bill.

They live near the end of a no-outlet street extends about half a mile north from Old Leechburg Road,, but fellow reading enthusiasts may want to travel a few minutes out of their way to see what the Murphys have to offer.

“I’ve been taking my stock to put out there, so far,” Janice said about her formidable book collection, and a friendly neighbor donated a selection of children’s titles after her own kids became enamored of the new neighborhood feature.

Janice, who used to teach preschool and kindergarten, became enamored of the Little Free Library concept after reading about it several years ago.

“The one day, it just came into my mind, and I couldn’t let it go,” she explained. “I said, ‘We have to do this,’ and I nagged at my sweet husband. And he said, ‘All right. We will build it. They will come,’ like ‘Field of Dreams.’”

In that regard, it’s a case of so far, so good.

“We’ve seen the interest already here,” Bill reported, “and it’s just getting started.”

The Murphys, who moved to Plum from Penn Hills seven years ago, embarked on their endeavor through the organizational version Little Free Library, a St. Paul, Minn-based nonprofit that has as its motto: “Take a book. Share a book.”

In 2009, Todd Bol of Hudson, Wis., built a model of a one-room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother, another teacher who loved to read. He filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard, and it received such a positive response he built several more and gave them away, representing a humble Little Free Library beginning.

By the time of Bol’s death from pancreatic cancer nine years later, more than 75,000 libraries had been launched worldwide. Today, the number is up to more than 150,000 in 120 countries, with 300 million books shared.

The Murphys have added a sixth mini-library for Plum.

“We’re just hoping people will take books,” Janice said. “They don’t have to bring them back.”

What they can do is help boost the supply.

“I found a few books in ours that I didn’t put in there,” Bill said. “So there have been people show up that I didn’t even know were out there.”

Beyond encouraging people to read, the Murphys have another goal with their Little Free Library.

“We don’t really know our neighbors that well,” Janice said, “and I thought this would be a great way to meet new people. Already, we’ve met three families that we didn’t know. So that’s a real positive.”

For more information about Little Free Library, visit littlefreelibrary.org.