LINCOLNVILLE BEACH— Lincolnville is the latest town in the Midcoast to install a “Little Free Library” along the beach. Funded by the Lincolnville Community Library and built by Ross Faneuf,  it was installed Monday, August 14, 2017.

“It’s modeled after the same concept as the Free Little Libraries all across the world,” said Sheila Polson, a librarian at Lincolnville Community Library. “The only difference with this one is instead of the ‘Take a book and leave a book’ motto, we actually just encourage you to just ‘Take a book.’ We get so many donations at the library that we’re just trying to pass the excess along.”

Little Free Libraries are built in a wide variety of creative styles meant to be accessible, eye-catching and celebratory of the pleasures of reading. The other difference between this little library and other Little Free Libraries (which are usually built to resemble a red-roofed school house) is that Faneuf constructed it resemble the Lincolnville Community Library.

Currently, the Little Free Library at the beach is filled with paperbacks that will appeal to all ages and genres. It joins other Midcoast Little Free Libraries such as the one on Bridge Street in Belfast, which is regularly used by passers-by walking to and from the footbridge. Literacy Volunteers of Waldo County, which built that one, has set a goal of building a minimum of six more Little Free Libraries around Waldo County. See that story here.

And it’s not just community organizations building them. This past spring, Lucinda Watson, a resident of Camden, took it upon herself to have a Little Free Library built and situated right on the edge of her lawn on Chestnut Street.

“I love seeing people stop by and take or give books and lifting their kids up to take a book,” she said. See that story here.

 To learn how to become a steward of a Little Free Library of your own visit: littlefreelibrary.org.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com