This article originally appeared on catjohnson.co.
I spent 20 years working in record stores.
When I was at Streetlight Records in Santa Cruz, Calif. (where I spent 16 of those years) I started my freelance writing career doing music writing, which grew to arts and culture writing, which grew to writing about community projects, which led me to what was then a budding and scrappy movement called coworking.
Which changed my life.
But as a budding community writer, I had the pleasure of interviewing Margret Aldrich, author of The Little Free Library Book about how these little libraries were making a big difference in communities around the world.
Curator of a Little Free Library herself, Aldrich shared a great story about the day she put the library in front of her house. For years, she and her husband weren’t in the habit of spending much time with their neighbors. They would get home from work, pull into their garage, and head in the back door of their house without much interaction. That all changed when they built a Little Free Library. Within minutes of putting it up, people were coming over to visit.
As she told me, “When we placed the Little Free Library in front of our house, it was instant. The minute we had it in the ground, we had neighbors crossing the street and coming from down the block to stop by and tell us how great it was. People who I had never spoken to came over to chat with us.”
Aldrich and I talked about how people are, indeed, desperate for connection, but there’s a weird social shield that keeps us from engaging with each other. But as soon as that shield is pierced — by anything, including putting up a little free library — it signals that you’re available for connection, conversation, ideas, and friendship.
Simple, and profound.
So what’s the equivalent of putting a little free library in your coworking space, your neighborhood, your community, your life? What’s something simple that gives people a reason and place to lay down their social armor and come say hello?
Most of us (especially in coworking and community building) are open to expanding our own circles, but it’s not always clear who else is. Which is kind of weird that so many of us are walking around wanting to be part of — and contribute to — something yet are stifled by social armor.
So let’s do more to pierce that armor and provide small-yet-meaningful ways for people to connect, shall we?
