The Lilliput Libraries initiative is getting bigger.
The small street libraries, a community project by Dunedin woman Ruth Arnison, have been popping up outside Dunedin homes since last year.
The project is the latest in a long line of initiatives by charitable trust Poems in the Waiting Room, which gives poetry cards to medical waiting rooms, rest homes, hospices and prisons.
Lilliput Libraries project encourages people to take a book and return it, or replace it with another.
The project recently was given 15 new libraries made by prisoners at the Otago Corrections Facility (OCF), taking its total across Dunedin to 19.
Organiser Ruth Arnison said she expected there would be 50 in place by the end of July, mostly built by OCF, Cargill Enterprises and the Taieri Blokes' Shed.
Many of the libraries had already been constructed and had been sent to various artists to paint.
A map of the libraries' locations would also be available for mobile devices and in hard copy later this year, she said.
Andersons Bay resident Sue McMeeking-Taylor, who has had her library since late last year, said the response had been "quite amazing''.
"Initially, I thought, ‘No books are coming back'.
"Then after about three weeks, all the books started coming back.
"It's really cool.
"It allows people to be able to have books without having to go buying books.
"And people are putting books in it regularly."
Mrs McMeeking-Taylor said she found out about the libraries through a note in her letterbox advertising one nearby.
She then decided she wanted one and contacted Mrs Arnison.
