Public Libraries Are Changing, Again

Last year I wrote about how libraries were changing, with the expectation that in the next 10 years 25% of all libraries would be bookless.  That's right.  Books will be checked out and loaded on your mobile device, or on a borrowed device from the library.  Now I find out libraries are for checking out cake pans, telescopes and  microscopes, American Girl dolls, fishing rods, and just about anything else you can think of.

In Sacramento, they have a new service called the Library of Things.  People can check out sewing machines, ukuleles, and board games, for example.  Libraries are after all, the original sharing economy, having circulated art prints, movies and music, and more recently have added tools.  There is now a cultural shift, in which libraries increasingly view themselves as a hands-on creative hub, places where people can learn new crafts and experiment with technology like 3-D printers.

.Public funding for libraries has decreased in the past several years, so libraries have turned to foundations, private donors and corporations for support.  Libraries realize that the best way to serve the community is to look like them.  Last year, the Free Library of Philadelphia pulled together city, state and private funds to open a teaching kitchen, meant to teach math and literacy through recipes and to address childhood obesity.

Libraries are looking for ways to become more active places.  At one library outside Syracuse, horticulture and garden plots are available for the community.  In Ann Arbor, the local library has a voluminous collection of science equipment, including telescopes, microscopes and cameras, often items patrons cannot afford to buy.  These new libraries, are allowing people who can't afford to purchase expensive equipment, to borrow it from the library.  In Berkeley, the Tool Lending Library, a forerunner of the maker movement, was established in 1979, now houses some 3,000 tools, including weed whackers, drain snakes,and demolition hammers.  That was 35 years ago.  It's taken a while, but the idea of libraries as a place for lending of all kinds, has finally caught on.  Will we have one in San Diego soon?  I don't know.