On a busy fall morning at the Osterville Village Library, executive director Cyndy Cotton showed off the library’s extensive collection of items you can check out that are not books. One of her favorites is a xylophone.
“I just think that's so cool,” she said. “Where do you ever get a chance to play it?”
It’s part of the “library of things” collection, which also includes banjos, virtual reality glasses, a blood pressure monitor, a doll house, and even an Xbox.
“I'd say about 13 years we've had the library of things slowly growing, seeing what people need and adding to it,” she said. “The sewing machine was probably the first thing we got.”
The sewing machine is a popular item to have in libraries of things here on the Cape. So are metal detectors, portable WiFi hotspots, and bike pumps. But most libraries of things here have at least a few items that are a little more niche.
At the Jonathan Bourne Public Library, for example, it’s more than just a kitchen aid stand mixer you can check out—you can also borrow attachments for making ice cream, grinding meat, and shaping homemade pasta.
Assistant director of the Bourne library Nicholas Schiller says one of his favorite items there is a digital recorder.
“We are an aging community, like a lot of places on the Cape,” he said. “If you want to capture family stories or do oral history, you can take that, put it in front of a conversation, and have someone tell the stories.”
Brooks Free Library in Harwich also tries to tailor its library of things items to the unique needs of the Cape community. Circulation librarian Kyle Brennan showed some items that are popular with summer visitors.
“In the summertime our most popular type of item is the lawn games,” she said. “We have a cornhole set that we've had to take out of circulation because it was used so much and we need to replace them.”
Brennan’s dream item to add to the library of things?
“Lawn mowers,” she said. “I don't know where we would put it. But, that'd be fun.”
Cotton in Osterville wants e-bikes in her library of things. Schiller in Bourne wants a video camera. Andrea Figaratto, director of Whelden Memorial Library in Barnstable, wants more indie board games for adults. In fact, she and her colleague Jules Seaver are taking requests.
“If there is something that you want, ask us,” Seaver said. “We're happy to see what we can do.”
There are limitations to what can go into a library of things, said Jennifer Pickett, deputy director of the Harwich Free Library.
“You don't want something that can come back with smells, with dirt that needs to be cleaned, that can be dropped in a puddle,” she said.
But no matter how indestructible a library of things item might seem, there’s always the risk of it getting lost or damaged. Every library handles this differently. In Bourne you have to sign a borrowing agreement. In Osterville you have to provide credit card information to check out the most expensive items. At Whelden Memorial, it’s more of a case-by-case situation, Figaratto says.
“We're about access. We don't want to restrict people from using things,” she said. “If something happens, let's talk about that. Let's see what we can do.”
Patrons are, for the most part, very respectful with library of things items, these librarians said. Brennan said a kid borrowed a GoPro from her library this summer, and it made it back in one piece.
“We actually have a bread machine, which has been checked out and comes back clean, which is always surprising,” she said.
Maintaining some library of things items can be tedious at times, Brennan said, but it’s worth it to help people.
“If it means I have to count 100-something mahjong tiles, I'd rather they come here and check it out and then count those tiles so another person can come in and do the same thing,” she said.
Most Cape libraries are part of the Cape Libraries Automated Materials Sharing network, or CLAMS. That means with a CLAMS library card, you have access to libraries of things across the Cape, although there are different rules about delivery, holds and returns when it comes to non-book items.
But chances are, your local librarians will be happy to help you understand those policies so you can get your hands on a food dehydrator, ghost hunting kit, or yarn winder—all for free.
See online catalogs of the libraries of things from this story:
