Depending on where you are from you might have come across little, free libraries before. Little boxes or shelves where people leave their old books for others to use behind and pick up new ones. I have come across them in various cities, but never have I seen such an abundance of them in a city nor each single one of them in such a neat and clean condition. The locals call them Minibieb, and unsurprisingly almost all of them in The Hague have little doors or glass covers to protect the books from rain and wind. For obvious reasons most of the books in The Hague’s Minibiebs are in Dutch, but there is one Minibieb located in the city centre which often has an abundance of English language books. The last time I checked, at least half of the books were in English, and they even had CDs and DVDs. Minibiebsdon’t have opening hours and are always available for you. Some of them come up on Google Maps but it is handy to know that there is also a website, making it easier to search for the closest Minibieb near you.

If you want to use the Minibieb the rules are clear: keep it dry, clean and neat, only leave books that are in a good condition behind and if you’re taking something with you, just make sure you don’t empty the whole Minibieb.