Joining the global trend of outdoor mini libraries popping up on street corners, a new mini library has been installed near the school’s main street entrance as a convenient way to share books with the community.

“One of the things that I really wanted to do was to share books with members of our community,” said librarian Stefanie Halliday. “There are a lot of readers at Greenhills. We are a big reading community. So, I wanted to reach out and extend that love of reading with the people in our area.”

Establishing the mini library has been a group effort. Halliday ordered the wooden box for the mini library from Little Free Library, a nonprofit organization that helps volunteers establish little free libraries in their communities. The maintenance staff installed the library near Greenhills Drive on Oct. 25. Middle school students helped to initially stock the mini library with books that had been donated to the school library but would not be used because of reading level or being duplicates.

“I grabbed a bunch of middle school students that I knew were big readers and just asked in a couple of different advisories to see if students would want to come and help me load it up for the first time,” said Halliday.

Anna Tukin ‘29 helped Halliday to initially stock the mini library.

 “Students can take a book and leave a book,” said Tukin. “I was excited to help with the mini library because I like making change in society, especially in the Greenhills community.”

The mini library works through the exchange of books when people take a book and share a book.

 “The idea is that anyone who passes by can come and take one and hopefully, anybody who passes by will also at some point leave one,” said Halliday. “There is just this constant exchange of free books going back and forth.”

One of the benefits of the mini library is that it is an equitable, accessible source of books for the Greenhills and broader community. There is no charge or membership necessary to use the mini library.

“I’m really hoping that everyone in our community – both inside our Greenhills school community and in our neighborhood outside – will just feel the joy of sharing books back and forth and feel like they are accessible and that they can get them at any time,” said Halliday.

Halliday said that the reaction from students and adults to the new mini library has been overwhelmingly positive.

“People see it as something that represents our school really well and kind of what we believe in and our goals for providing equitable resources,” said Halliday.

One challenge in making the library fully operational is ensuring more students and community members know that the library is available for their use.   

“It was a little slow at first, but now I am noticing that there are a few more books gone. I am hoping that it will get more and more use both from our students and parents and even staff,” said Halliday. “[I am] also hoping that the community around us — people that walk by, that walk their dogs in the area – will stop by and take advantage of it.”

Given its location near the main school entrance, the new mini library’s appearance is still reaching upper school students. 

“I did not know about the mini library before but I would love to use it now that I know,”  said Renia Khan ’25. “It will be really fun to find new books from there”.”

Ms. Halliday stated that the Mini library communicates a important message to the community 

“The message that it sends to our community is that reading is a joy, reading should be free for everyone and books should be shared,” said Halliday.