Data and code for: What’s in a book exchange: Examining contents in relation to steward intentions, geography, and public library collections

Data and code for research on Little Free Libraries (LFL) in Seattle. These files are archived from a GitHub repository linked in the references field.

The peer reviewed paper is here:  https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006221124336 

We interviewed stewards from a random sample of LFLs in Seattle, WA and documented the contents of each LFL. The files here support a publication examining what is found in LFLs and how stewards manage their LFLs.

Abstract:

 In the last decade, book exchanges, most prominently those registered with the Little Free Library® network, have attracted the interest of researchers and media alike. Very little is known about what types of books are available in these book exchanges and how their collections compare to those in public libraries. To address this gap in knowledge, we selected a random sample of 42 Little Free Libraries across eight Seattle neighborhoods to inventory their contents. We interviewed the stewards about their stocking and weeding practices. Our inventory shows that most of the books available in Little Free Libraries are children’s, mystery, suspense, self-help/health, and scifi/fantasy books published in the last 10–30 years. Neighborhoods in our sample ranged in socioeconomic and racial diversity measures, but there were no significant differences in LFL contents related to those measures. We also compared our inventory to the collections of nearby public library branches and found Little Free Libraries offer a complementary rather than competitive selection scenario: books in LFLs are generally older, with a lesser proportion of children’s books and higher proportion of fiction books.