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I borrowed a tiller from my library to do a wildflower garden in my front yard by the road. Libraries are truly one of our most precious assets.
Mine has a tool library and a bike jack:) The library where I grew up let you rent paintings!
That is neat! There is a bike club at the university in my town that does bike repair clinics twice a week.
The painting thing is really cool. Did they have originals you could borrow or were they prints? Did you ever use that service?
I was a kid so I wasn’t particularly interested in the service at the time (I went straight for the book section or the computers). Not sure if they were prints or originals :( Originals would be really cool
I see no difference between the book as a tool or any other tool. They all get worn, you can only use one copy at once...maybe the difference is that you will recurrently need specific tools...but reference books were like that too (replaced by the internet). But I guess that is why dictionaries were not lent, at least at my local lib.
I have heard of this idea, totally support it and hope it works and becomes more popular.
Auto parts stores do this but I wish libraries did, too
I wonder how well this would work in my neighborhood 😬 but it’s a good initiative. And since someone has figured it all out, and even studied the results, it’s literally a “no brainer”.
Libraries are uniquely positioned to fill the need for third spaces, social places where people come gather and mix among their communities. The problem, at least here in the states, is that a particular segment of society views them as useless since they don't generate a profit.
That is a deadly mindset. And there’s a dehumanising element inherently in that, that not only are we not worth it, but that worth itself is a product of wealth.
That's my entire point though. The powers that be dont view libraries or even common areas as beneficial or even useful as they don't line someone's pockets. I'd say you'd have a solid majority of people off the street would very much like to see their local libraries funded, as would I, yet more often than not they're the first on the chopping block when fund cuts make their rounds.
If there are problems you can always take a deposit.
I’m probably catastrophising. But if it is broken or “lost”, then hasn’t the library has basically traded the item for a fraction of the cost?
The deposit could be greater or equal to the items value to encourage returning it.
From a socioeconomic point, if it gets enough uses by enough people it's worth it. So the math then is what side of the threshold you'll land on
Yeah, that’s a good point. So it will depend how quickly the item disappears.
At least the way the auto parts store does it, you get charged the full price of a tool if you fail to return it.
(Source: I accidentally bought a vacuum pump.)
That actually sounds ideal.
I mean, I could've gotten a better deal if I'd been shopping around intentionally...
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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