Library of Thingscmladmin2025-02-26T10:58:59-05:00
LIBRARY OF THINGS – Borrowing Beyond Books
Obtain a Curtis Memorial Library card to borrow from our Library of Things. This collection can be browsed by category below or seen throughout our Nonfiction shelves. Oversize items can be fetched by staff and you may reserve Things for checkout just as you do a book. A listing of all kits is available in Minerva. By checking out a Thing you agree to the Borrowing and Use Guidelines.
**Some items in our Library of Things are referred to as “Specialty Items”. Speciality items can only be checked out by our 18+ patrons due to legal and/or safety concerns. For a listing of these Specialty Items, see here.
Thank you to our many generous community members, including the following organizations:
Why lend Things?
Libraries of Things, Tool Libraries, Gear Sharing & Rental Spaces, and other community sharing tools exist both locally and all over the world. Think about your hierarchy of ownership and consider sharing beyond at our library with distributed models including: a timebank such as the Hour Exchange, neighborhood resource sharing, and more. Neighborhood resource sharing can be as easy as a bulletin board or spreadsheet. This may be a good option for items our library has (an electric wood chipper) or items you wish we had (an electric lawnmower or snow blower) that can be used by many people but do need to be stored. Here is a sample spreadsheet you can adapt. We also have a number of books such as the NOLO publication, The Sharing Solution, which can provide you with legal agreement forms for sharing of housing, good, food, care, transportation or work.
Learn how we support repair and reuse with our consumable swaps, classes and repair cafes on our repair page.
