The generosity of alumna Barbara Creecy Tate has allowed Arkansas Tech University to participate in a worldwide movement known as the Little Free Library.
Located on the quad between the Administration Building and the Hull Physical Education Building on the ATU campus in Russellville, Arkansas Tech’s Little Free Library provides students, faculty and staff with a resource to freely share books and promote literacy.
Tate (photographed, red jacket), a 1959 graduate of Arkansas Tech with a degree in business education, visited the Little Free Library she made possible during Homecoming 2018.
She was joined by her fellow members of the Caraway Hall Third Floor Girls, a group of Arkansas Tech alumnae from the late 1950s who gather at Homecoming each year and support a scholarship program for ATU students.
The Little Free Library program was established by Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisc., in 2009. Bol passed away on Oct. 18, 2018, just one day before Tate and the Caraway Hall Third Floor Girls visited the Little Free Library at ATU. In his final days, Bol reaffirmed his faith in the program.
“I really believe in a Little Free Library on every block and a book in every hand,” said Bol. “I believe people can fix their neighborhoods, fix their communities, develop systems of sharing, learn from each other and see that they have a better place on this planet to live.”
There are more than 75,000 registered Little Free Libraries in 85 countries.
