AMID the hundreds of retail outlets clamouring for your dollar at Melbourne Central shopping centre is an unlikely balm for the soul.

The centre's owners, the GPT Group, have quietly set up a free lending library. It's proved a hit and it's here to stay. At first glance the Little Library - on a busy level-two through-way from Swanston Street to the station - seems full of dog-eared 1970s potboilers.

Melbourne Central's Justin Shannon in the Little Library at the shopping centre that operates on an honour system. Credit:Simon O'Dwyer

A closer scan of the shelves yesterday revealed a biography of war hero Sir Edward Dunlop; Kevin Morgan's Gun Alley, about a 1920s Melbourne murder; the Michael Connelly crime novel Lost Light; and Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.

But today the titles could be different, says Melbourne Central general manager Justin Shannon. In the first two weeks after it opened two months ago, the library turned over about 500 books. The first 1000 came from an appeal for donations via Facebook and Twitter, and GPT bought other books from op shops.