MANCHESTER, N.H. – There are plenty of services available at city hall, but now there’s one more: checking out books.
On Friday, city officials installed a Little Free Library behind the West Wing of Manchester City Hall near the corner of Hampshire Lane and Stark Street.
Since its 2009 establishment in Wisconsin, there are now 80,000 of the small, homemade book depositories across 90 countries, including nine at other locations in Manchester.
Anyone can take a book from the Little Free Libraries and others are encouraged to leave books there for others from their own personal collections.
City hall’s new Little Free Library was built through the work of volunteers from Girls at Work in coordination with the Manchester City Library and the Manchester Parks and Recreation Division.
The new Little Free Library at city hall is the first of fifteen new Little Free Libraries Girls at Work have constructed for the city, with three more coming to Livingston Park, Rock Rimmon Park and Sheridan-Emmett Park.
“Any way we can encourage people to read is great. If kids can just go to a park and grab a book and sit under a tree and read, this is why we’re doing it,” said Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig.
Earlier in the week, the city in coordination with the Granite United Way and Wells Fargo also began a literacy program at Manchester’s middle schools.
More information on the Little Free Library program is available on its website.
