The original Tardis built by Christopher
Jen Look loves her town of Macon, GA. She describes it as an amazing place going through economic revitalization, with lots of people working to create stronger communities. She read about Little Free Libraries and thought that they would be a great way to bring neighbors together, promote literacy and increase public art.
She wound up bringing 7 Little Free Libraries to Macon…but one of them is not-so-little. In fact, it’s over 6′ tall, holds 18 compartments for books plus storage space, and has a “hidden” compartment that holds information on local events, Little Free Libraries and lets people leave notes inside.
So what, exactly, does this Library look like? Well the Tardis from Dr. Who, of course! We thought there had to be an amazing story behind this Library, so here is what Jen had to say:
“I contacted a dozen people to gauge the interest in bringing Little Free Libraries to middle Georgia…it turned out several other people had the exact same thought. One of those people was Christopher Marney – computer technician by day and The Doctor/an amazing carpenter by night. Christopher had already built a full scale TARDIS for conventions and party rentals with his cosplay group, FourInTheTARDIS.com. We thought that the idea of books being full of exciting new worlds to explore was a terrific fit inside a TARDIS.
So Christopher provided plans and a budget, and I wrote a grant proposal to bring a handful of Little Free Libraries to Macon. The Knight Neighborhood Challenge program provided the funding.
Construction begins on the Tardis Not-So-Little Library
Dozens of volunteers provided energy, ideas and thousands of hours of effort. Christopher and his wife Hannah got to work doing a phenomenal job of converting several truckloads of lumber into an amazing library. He also made videos of the process and has plans available for others who are interested in building their own.
Even before the library was built we had tremendous success. Mercer University’s Tarver Library chose Dr. Who as their theme to celebrate National Library Week, and the traveling TARDIS landed to help celebrate. They had a “Bad Wolf” scavenger hunt through the stacks, bow tie decorating crafts, viewings of the “Silence in the Library” episode, and helped us spread the word about the Macon Little Free Libraries to a lot more people. We also participated in World Book Night, giving out 50 books and getting people excited about the start of our Libraries.
The Tidwell family stopped by during the installation process
The Not-So-Little Library was installed in late May 2014, and has already been wildly successful. Dozens of people have come to take or leave books, or just to take photos. Our biggest problem now is actually that we’ve gotten more books donated than we have space for – too many books, what a great problem to have!
We would love it if people who stop by could share their photos on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MaconLittleFreeLibrary. Anyone with questions can contact us through Facebook or at maconlittlelibrary@gmail.com.”
*UPDATE 8/26/14* We recently found out about a build-your-own-Tardis video tutorial by Steve Ramsey that is designed for folks with limited access to tools and an intermediate skill level. Check it out here!*
We are just ready to install a tardis also that we made by re-purposing a magazine/newspaper box that our local newspaper gave us! We also have an English phone booth and there is something about the big libraries that encourage people to leave boxes of books. It’s really neat. Plus they turn into photo locations for prom pictures, senior pictures, etc. It’s lots of fun.