Past King’s Place, past the Tannery and past City Hall you will find Rabbit Town, the oldest side of Fredericton. This part of the city used to be home to the railroad tracks and stretches across York Street towards Smythe Street. Not too many people refer to the area as Rabbit Town anymore, but this is one neighborhood which hasn’t lost its old school charm.
I recently moved to the area and there’s no denying its novelty. People are always biking by, pushing babies in strollers or walking their dogs. Young kids can be seen lugging beat-up vacuums proclaiming they are the new ghost busters in town, but what really caught me was the community library.
Nestled on Aberdeen Street near the exhibition grounds is a wooden bookcase with a glass door, propped up on a post. Tapped to the window door is a note saying “take one, leave one, or both”
I walk past the shelf almost everyday and always stop to peer in. For each visit, there are new books and the ones from a week ago are long forgotten. There’s romance, murder, French, history, children’s books and a bunch more. I was especially disheartened when the Porn for New Moms was snatched up.
It’s apparent, this is one active community staple, but I could never catch anyone in the book smuggling act. I started to imagine friendly gnomes were the ones responsible, but after some door knocking and inquiries to some neighbors, I was led to Luc Walhain, who just so happens to be a history professor at STU.
“Why not add the opportunity to exchange some books and get to know other people among our community? I’ve had a few people stop by while I was out there and they would ask is this yours? And we would strike up a conversation,” said Walhain. “That adds an opportunity to establish more of a neighbour atmosphere and I think it’s all positive. I don’t see how any negativity could come from it at all.”
The professor put the shelf up last May and was amazed by the quiet attention his homemade project received. At first, Walhain had put in 15 of his own books and within a few days there were 20 new titles organized on the shelves.
“I don’t have a webcam or anything monitoring people to make sure they don’t take all the books, it just works. It’s incredible,” said Walhain.
“These kind of ideas do many things for the community, it reinforces trust, people trust one and other. I think people want to be honest and I think that if they are given more opportunities then they will be, it just becomes out of habit. If you’re given more trust it will lead you to become trustworthy.”
The tiny book house isn’t unique to Fredericton. Walhain came across the idea on the internet. The book share first popped up in Wisconsin during 2009. In that time the idea has spread to over 40 countries. They have been popularized under the name Little Free Library. There’s an official website where people can mark their individual little libraries on a map and upload pictures of them.
For Walhain, the book box is more about community and what we can do within in. He is hoping ideas like this will instill good values and conscience thinking within our everyday life.
“I think we need to change our mentality If we don’t want to ruin the environment, if we don’t want to exert the effects of economic imperialism, if we can reduce that, all the better for the local population,” said Walhain.
A few days after Walhain had built his own bookhut another one had popped up on Northumberland Street. Beside this one hangs a community bulletin board which says “share whatever you’d like.”
“I think everyone has their own reasons, it’s based on a set of ideas. when I came across the idea it just fit, it fit exactly. It’s the tiniest idea, but I think it speaks so well to many of the values and ideas that I cherish,” said Walhain.
