It is no secret that Doug Holmes is a community-minded person, but his neighbours may have been curious when he installed a Little Free Library in front of his house recently.
“They’re just really neat,” Holmes said. “It’s such a simple concept, you just exchange books and share the pleasure of reading and it helps build community as well.”
Little Free Libraries are found world- wide and Holmes is not the first person in Summerland to have one.
“I have been meaning to build one for quite a while and finally got my act together and built one,” said Holmes. “It was easy to make. I’m not a carpenter at all. I just winged it. It is all made from recycled material and scrap lumber I had around the house. I built a slanted roof so the water will run off of it. It’s got a door on it and I just used a plastic window.”
Holmes fills his library with books and people can come and help themselves to a book or they are also free to leave a book they no longer want to keep. He makes a point of including books for children in it as well.
Millions of books are being exchanged and recycled around the world in this manner, but something else is also happening at the same time.
“People are out walking and it gives them a reason to stop and to talk and you’re sharing,” Holmes said. “Within a neighbourhood if you’re sharing books, then people in that neighbourhood may be reading the same books, so that provides talking points among neighbours.”
It is not surprising that Holmes would be interested in this project because he is not only a graduate of journalism and political science, but he has also authored his own book called Egov: E-Business Strategies for Government, published in seven languages.
After university he was a journalist in the Northwest Territories and the editor of the newspaper in Yellowknife. He has worked in Hong Kong and Romania, reporting for different newspapers and for MacLean’s magazine. He settled in England for 15 years and edited a magazine called Government Computing.
“Then the internet happened,” said Holmes. “I started writing about how governments could use this thing called the internet and I wrote a book about that. Then I got hired by Microsoft … and for 10 years I went around talking to their public sector customers about what they could do with technology.”
It was in 2004, that Holmes and his wife and two young children moved to Summerland, in order to be close to family who were here. Initially they only intended to stay for one year.
“I think it’s a very common story,” Holmes mused. “People come here and they see what this place is like and you understand pretty quickly that it’s a special place and there are not many places like this, so you want to stay and you think this is the kind of place where I want to raise my kids.”
Holmes lists the surroundings, the climate, the character of the town, the friendliness of the people and the opportunities here as all being part of the quality of life that he says, “can’t be beat.”
Since Homes has been on City Council, he has had the opportunity of visiting many places throughout the community and he finds that very interesting. As a result, he is working on his next project which is organizing a Summerland open house day for the fall. He wants to see buildings that people don’t normally have access to, opened to the public for the day. Such buildings may include the Water Treatment Plant and Heritage Homes, for instance.
It would seem that many of Holmes’ efforts centre around the building of community and he willingly explained why.
“I really believe that if people are more aware of their own community and get to know it better, then they are going to be more invested in it. They will volunteer for organizations, they are going to shop locally and they will give more back to the community, so there is a real economic spin-off too,” he said.