Cold Lake council is in discussion about a free book exchange opportunity.
During the city’s corporate priorities committee meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 18, council provided their thoughts on the future of a book nook in Cold Lake.
CAO Kevin Nagoya said community members have approached the city, requesting a program like this be set up in Cold Lake.
“It’s an emerging trend,” he expressed, adding book nooks are starting to pop-up in other urban centres.
Council discussed the possibility of creating a book nook, which is a small structure featured in areas throughout the community, where people can take a book and leave a book.
Concerns were raised about the location of the book nooks, which would be at the end of a property and vulnerable to forms of vandalism.
“Because it’s placed at curb side, and not directly in front of somebody’s home, it’s closer to the road. (We would need) some kind of standardized agreement with the residents or an expectation of the upkeep of these book nook shelters,” Nagoya explained.
Coun. Jürgen Grau discussed an example of a Book nook he had seen while in Lethbridge, noting there may be some issues with the upkeep of them.
“We went for a walk through one of their parks, and right at the entrance was one of these little boxes. Honestly, I thought it was a pretty cool idea. It was unusual, for sure, to see something like that, and the first thought I had was ‘how do you keep it from getting tampered with ‘and stuff stuffed inside’ and so on,” he recalled, adding that it could encourage people to read.
Other concerns included what content would be featured in the Book nooks, and if someone would be responsible for monitoring what books are left behind.
Nagoya said, “It’s very self-regulated, and to the degree that they’re self-regulated, they’re not put onto public property, like a public park or anything like that. That property owner is requesting to be presented a license or a privilege to be able to put something in front of their place to be able to share books... It’s very much self-regulated.”
While he understood that some residents may want a book nook program established, Coun. Chris Vining discussed his apprehensions of leaving responsibilities of upkeep to one person.
“(Having) a private citizen being able to do this, regardless of whether or not you put it on the edge of their property or you put it on our property... There’s a whole bunch of things that come around this one. In our community we know we get a lot of turnover in homeowners. When the new homeowner comes in, who’s going to tell them they have to look after it, they have to take it down. If it gets kicked over, and is leaning sideways, who goes and puts it back up straight,” he expressed, adding that he was curious of who would become the steward to monitor the structures.
Nagoya mentioned that if they’re going to be put onto municipal land, there should be a permit system to “either allow it or not allow it to be there.”
Administration plans to organize a pilot project with the interested parties, and to present the plan to council.
Council agreed they would need to reach out to the public for feedback before moving forward with the idea.
