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Libraries of Things are a thing now. The items that are most useful are those that lend things that you use from once a year to every couple of years.

My local library (PEI Library Service) has a telescope, radon detector, a basic (and I mean basic) toolkit, some gardening tools among other things. The collection has a couple of surprises, but mostly underwhelming.

I did request something more practical, like a bicycle disc brake flushing kit, but this has not happened yet.

The local library system has in addition to niche services like 3d printers and circuit card printers a humongous board game collection. You can reserve a board game online, it eventually appears at your local branch of the library and then you check it out for 2 weeks.

Really great way to test before you buy.

Our little town in Minnesota has some of these too (https://winona.lib.mn.us/library-of-things/) it's really cool! There's also a new maker space getting set up now which will have a tool library open to the community.

The Washington County library system is excellent; I love that one card will get you access to the entire area.

The Greene County Ohio Public Library (Xenia, OH) did something like this a few years ago and other libraries in the area (Dayton Metro and Troy-Miami County) started similar spaces, too. They all have a similar array of machines-- CNC, 3D printing, dye sub printing, laser engravers, vinyl cutters, sewing and embroidery, video and photo editing, etc. It's amazing to me that within a five year timespan all of this became available to anybody in the community for the cost of materials.

That sounds so cool, are they building an entire fablab in there?

It depends.

We have a few sewing machines that are finicky. Tension goes off rapidly, binds a lot, lint buildup constantly has to be cleaned, clunks mysteriously sometimes. We also have a Singer manufactured in 1899 that just does what it's supposed to reliably (and you can still get parts for it!). Now mind you, it doesn't do fancy stitches or buttonholing or anything but straight stitching and a basic zigzag and you do have to keep the treadle properly lubricated but it even works during a power failure.

Sewing machines, like stand mixers and vacuum cleaners, in the end are power tools as much as radial arm saws, hammer drills, and routers are. It's great to have all the fancy features, but sometimes lowest tech is the best.

Have you considered that maybe your sewing machine is faulty in some way? Either the model or the particular instance of it.

I’m also a complete sewing machine noob. We have a sewing machine at our hackspace, someone gave me a minute long tutorial and I had zero trouble with it afterwards. I think the whole “tutorial” was just: follow the arrows when threading it, don’t push down the pedal when your finger is under the needle. And it just worked as it should.

Maybe i just got lucky! But my experience was so different from yours that it made me think that maybe your sewing machine is either bad quality or has some hidden defect.

The sewing machine stays in that library so I’m going to make the assumption they have a bit of in house expertise for advice and counsel - they have a photo of the anecdote in question and it’s only a starting point on how Finland is trying to use libraries to promote society and democracy by providing tools and spaces and opportunities - you might be focusing too much on minutiae - one of the librarians speaks about the ways they work to increase library use. There’s a short contrast with the USA and UK closing libraries in recent years and one of the librarians interviewed moved to Finland from the UK - that may also be a reason the BBC went with this story.

I bought a sewing machine a five years ago and I haven’t had to do any maintenance or repairs to it. What kinds of things are breaking on your machine?

Sewing machines are complex, but ive had experiences both ways with them. One model I had endless troubles with both getting to run and keep running well, but then ive had others that are seemingly bulletproof. At my family's cabin my great-grandmother had a foot powered one that to this day works flawlessly and has never seen any maintenance or repairs ive ever seen and she use to make tons of quilts on it. I don't use it much these days but I do squirt a bit of oil on it every few years and make sure it is still working.

Opposite experience. I studied mine extensively when I got it. I rarely have problems. But it's definitely a mechanical wonder.

Get yourself an old Singer. They're the Toyota of sewing machines.

You have confused high maintenance with complex. Not to belittle sewing machines, which are very cool and not exactly simple.

Yes and no. I can stitch. I regularly do adjust clothes. I am a bad amateur. It's crazy what my neighbor does (She has a industrial sewing machine) and does piece finish work. It's a real skill.

However, I highly recommend everyone get and learn how to perform basic stitches because hand stitching is a lot hard to get a good quality stitch out of, especially for doing things like repairs in areas that wear.

Please critisize the harassment, not libraries for providing shelter to homeless people. A well managed library has a degree of supervision that allows the visitor to do something about harassment. This level of control is also important for homeless people, who are subject to harassment more than most. A reasonably well run library is also no place to consume alcohol or drugs in plain sight. In these respects libraries are so much more apt places than train/subway stations - something acknowledged by large user groups: https://www.ala.org/advocacy/diversity/librariesrespond/serv...

15 years ago I lived in East London, and when I came to borrow books (e.g. to the "Idea Store Whitechapel"), I felt some sort of proudness seeing homeless people hanging out there, listening to mp3, having a coffee in the cheap cafeteria or - yes! - reading: True inclusion seemed to work in so few places in the country - at least there it was tangible. I live in Marseille/France now and haven't noticed this here; but a homeless person is not necessarily obvious - next time I visit, I'll have a look!

This is a sad state of affairs.

I hope wherever you live can pull out of the dive.

Libraries are amazing and I would say that the fact they are so under funded and eventually turn into little more than a place to sleep, is very unfortunate.

I have woken up so much, sitting in a library for days, reading, reading, reading ..

If it weren’t for libraries, I’d have only read 1984 and not Down and Out in Paris and London, nor the one about Aspidispira, works with gravitas which fundamentally changed my opinion about personal responsibility at a respectable age.

I wonder if any of those homeless folk get a chance to talk to the ghosts of those aisles. Probably the library worked, once.

You mean being asked for spare change makes you avoid that library? Why not just give them your change?

These sorts of services do seem very dependent on the details of how they are organized.

I’ve had experience with two university libraries with 3d printers. They both advertise them similarly, and they were nominally similar services, ostensibly letting students and staff both 3d print and learn about 3d printing.

At one, the arrangement was that they’d show you around the machines, give you a link to a list of notes and rules, and then you could come in and use the printers. If you wanted to do something unusual or use an exorbitant amount of filament, they asked that you talk to them first. That service is what initially introduced me to 3d printing.

At the other, the library staff decided they’d rather handle everything themselves. You’d submit an stl, then they’d print it at some point, potentially weeks later. Random color pla only, no slicing and providing gcode or even requests for settings. In practice staff decided they would only accept links to popular stls online; submitting your own stl would be rejected. They printed at such bad settings that everything would come out horribly. The service was worse than useless, taught nothing, and may well have turned many students off 3d printing entirely, if they thought the results were indicative of what 3d printing could do. We essentially have to warn students that the service is not practically usable.

But both, of course, say they have 3d printers.

In the equation there seems to be a typo;

103 - number of ppl in queue, 4 - up to X weeks per person, 2 - number of machines 12 - ??

Maybe you initially wanted to use full months for how long a person can hold an item, but then switched to weeks, and accidently still used number of months to get the number of years?

Anyway, for an imprecise number, you can do with months - 104*1/2/12 ~4.3y.

For more precise result, use seconds, as that's the unit used for the precise length of the year. Year is not 365 days. It's actually longer, quoting Wikipedia for (tropical) year,

> Approximately 365 solar days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds

That gives

  104 * (4 * 7 * 24 * 60 * 60) /2 /(((365 * 24 + 5) * 60 + 48) * 60 + 45)

Edit: getting asterikses * right

That theoretical wait time doesn’t usually end up being so long. Between borrowers returning things early, people on the wait list giving up and most importantly, the library deciding that the current inventory is insufficient, the wait times usually are much less than that (I’ve observed this with books and other materials at my local library and the wait on in-demand times is never as long as the queue would imply).

While the wait time to rent a machine may be long (I didn't even know Denver had this,) Denver also has the ideaLAB maker spaces at five branches, all of which are equipped with sewing machines to just drop in and use.

Some ideaLAB locations (like my local one) have fancy machines like embroidery, quilting, and industrial sewing machines. There's also lots of other tools, from basic hand tools to laser cutters and 3d printers (again, location dependent.) There's always staff on hand to help during open lab hours. All free to use. Really an impressive system that I use frequently.

https://denverlibrary.org/idealab

That doesn’t seem right - off the top of my head I think it’s more like 4 years? maybe it should be “103*4/2/52” (not “/12”) ?

… hopefully the effective wait time is considerably shorter if a long line is taken as a demand signal, leading them to buy more.

In my experience it will also make you appreciate aspects of physical production that don't apply to programming. For example, how precisely you need to cut fabric and join/pin/baste fabric together before you sew such that it looks nice. I'm glad I don't need to reckon millimeter precision on a ruler for my job.

What kind of stuff do you make sewing? About the only think I've ever wanted to sew was a new pocket on a jacket

working with your hands and developing physical craftsmanship is unbeatable

The Deichman Library in Bjørvika, Oslo, Norway (they named their public library after a businessman/book collector who donated his books to the city) is basically a hangout space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT1xI7SSdLo

I used to think this way too. When I was growing up, libraries were for books.

And that one room where they had periodicals (magazines, newspapers, and such) but you had to read those there in that room.

And encyclopedias, for kids to use for their research reports.

And a story hour for kids (and, let's face it, for the parents).

And that one computer in the back that had Oregon Trail and Summer Olympic Games on it.

But mostly I remembered the books, and that's what I felt like libraries should be about.

Now I feel like a library's purpose is to support it's community. Mostly they lend books because that's what they're known for and they're very good at it. They're expanding into eBooks because that's another big thing people read today. And music CDs and DVDs which is very similar to lending books, and people like those.

Expanding out to lending things is a bit of a mind-bender for me too, but I think it's in line with what libraries have always done - help the community.

> but I think it distracts from the actual purpose.

The purpose of a library is what it does.

They used to lend books, to promote literacy & education. For youngsters to explore fields of knowledge & discover what they're interested in. Offer a selection of newspapers & magazines nobody can afford on their own.

Fablabs, places for students to work on their laptop, workshops etc fit right into this.

But the community center aspect has always been a thing. These days that might be extended in hosting a repair cafe, puzzles / board games, whatever that local community regards worthwhile.

If you think that's a no-go, maybe public libraries aren't for you. Or just stick to the book area.

There are some tool libraries where i live specifically for big or expensive stuff like ladders, power saws, etc; stuff most people need once every few years but don't want to keep in their apartment

Tool libraries rock, i think this model could work really well for lots of things especially in big cities.

I am blessed with a huge apartment but even i have to make decisions about what tools to keep around given the space. Yeah i could buy something from harbor freight and use it once and donate to the thrift store, but how much better if my neighbors and i could just share a big collection of stuff we all might need once every year or two

How are you going about this? Asking because I thought about doing something similar (e.g., Makerspaces, hackerspaces, Fab Labs).

You are being unfair to the spirit of the original quote.

Yes, the quote is naive in expecting a world where those who own share with those who rent without nefarious motives. But sharing, particularly in this context when profit is out of the equation, is a great idea. I don't have the money nor space for my own 3D printer, but thanks to my local library I own objectively more 3D printed stuff than I would without them.

What?

I’d love to be able to borrow a sewing machine, tools, etc. I live in a small flat and I don’t need permanent ownership of those things. They spend 99.5% of the time sat taking up space. What good is that? For a lot of machines it’s not good to leave them idle, or sat in a shed collecting mould and rust.

Oodi is at least equally community / maker space and library, very distinctively and attractively designed, quite new, and in the middle of Helsinki, so there are a lot of non Finnish speakers visiting so there is a large English section.

Would you prefer it on a Finnish webpage?

https://oodihelsinki.fi/mita-oodilaiset-lukevat-syyskuussa/a...

There is lots of English/Swedish books in average Finnish library.

Manufactured reality

I think society only works in a high trust society. Well, maybe something exists functionally in low trust society, but it sounds miserable.

I moved to Finland, and starting when my child was about three years old I took him to Oodi every weekend.

The soft-play area was heaven for him, and he liked flicking through the donald-duck comic books.

Even now, when he's nine, I go every month or two with him for an afternoon. He has no shortage of books at home, but he gets to run around, look at books, and play with other kids. He enjoys himself enormously.

I live in Finland and even I am sceptical of this figure. Maybe that’s because I go once a year.

I will say it’s very very common for folks to use the library for its primary purpose of renting books - which of course requires a visit twice in a month - once to collect and once to return.

The report is deliberately misleading by the red-green government. If you read between the lines it is a poll among the library visitors.

Hey baby, wanna see my sewing machine? I can add a gusset anywhere you want.

I think musical instruments, especially digital ones like synthesizers or effects but also guitars and other acoustic instruments, have become a lot more affordable the last decade without severely impacting quality. You don't really need the expensive stuff anymore when you can record a quality recording with a second hand iPad and a below $100 microphone.

Rental of expensive stuff will always be expensive too due to insurance, maintenance and fraud. It's not really helping to make stuff more accessible, more a convenience for the pro's that need stuff for a gig.

Too bad the title got censored.

"Had"?

I know this is supposed to be sarcastic, but This is actually a great framing for why we should love our libraries.

They’re decidedly NOT productive to business. They’re yours as a person. They’re your time, your leisure, your enrichment.

I suppose they’re productive to business in the long run because the create more thoughtful and effective people so maybe they’re not all good.

Still, a good reason to lean into them.

It may lead to less demand for things like sewing machines which in turn may lead to less competition to less productivity, the producers innovating less, less GDP less happy people... Where have we seen this type of thinking before... In socialist States... I agree... But how do we create supply and demand? Letting China produce cheaply and open our boarders for a couple of decades, maybe... Maybe we are in a doom loop where we need a poorer generation or two before people turn around... It is interesting times. The most interesting is how people view the same things completely opposite. Some are super happy about the trend others super frustrated... Imho it is a part of the great reset and the big debt cycle. Maybe an attempt to soften the blow?!

Hilarious. Tool libraries exist and are quite successful here in capitalist US of A (and, apparently, in capitalist Finland. You didn't think they were communists or something, did you?)

Speaking as a co-founder of a large community hackerspace, we don't have the volunteer bandwidth to manage the additional overhead of tool lending. Please, please, please let the libraries offer more alternatives. It's exactly their mission.

Libraries are so unfair to Mr. Bezos. They should obviously be demolished. But I'm concerned that their demolition would be an expansion of government "doing things". It would be best if interested parties simply be allowed to demolish them at will without interference from the state.

Agree, and I also don’t see why government should be involved in book rental. Why books and not say, car rental? What about jetski rental?

(If the argument is that subsidizing books helps the poor, I’m all for it, a nonprofit or a charity would be a much better framework)

This is the public sector M.O, instead of admitting something is obsolete they grab more scope and funding.

My local post office now sells iPhones. And why shouldn’t they? Nobody stopped them when they just sold SIM cards, and then cases and chargers. It’s like a law of nature.

Libraries have been renting non-books for a long time. Different communities have different needs. It's not a big deal. Some libraries in the Los Angeles area lend sewing machines, bike tools, and other useful stuff. The main branch library has 3d printers and other tech stuff ordinary folks can't afford. And of course, they have various workshops on numerous topics for adults and children.

Given all the stuff I've taken advantage of, if the libraries here were only for borrowing books, they would seem kind of useless. And this is from someone who has the max 30 books checked out right now.

I'd argue the opposite: because they are focusing on knowledge acquisition they are trying to separate the medium (the books) from the objective.

40 years ago books were the only way to obtain knowledge. Nowadays even those who come for the books do so with a laptop for taking notes. If I were a librarian, it would be naive of me not to ask the question "if all the books are online, then why are we here?"

Anecdotally, on the topic of "knowledge acquisition", I used to run a drawing group. Finding a place to do so was a major problem because nobody wanted to invite strangers home and not everybody could afford the ~$20 it would take to stay at a cafe for long. A library with a meeting room would have been our dream solution and perhaps would have kept the group from dissolving.

Libraries might not be a business but they still have to compete for funding. If those funding them think they are no longer relevant, the alternative is to slowly lose funding and die. People don't care about books anymore, so if the library must dangle an enticement to keep people engaged enough to retain the instilled indeed that knowledge should be freely available instead of siloed (and the other benefits of libraries), so be it.

Adapt or die is the way of life.

It’s easier to take time to pick up a book and learn something if your life is going smoothly in other areas. If all your clothes need mending it can make a barrier of embarrassment to go to a public place like a library. With the hollowing out of the middle class, people live in smaller housing and move more, lose their inter generational resources. If there’s a trusted social institution that is knowen for borrow and lending, and people have a need to borrow tools for their everyday life it seems not such a deviation from the purpose of libraries

Andrew Carnegie funded 2,500+ public libraries and many were built with lecture halls, auditoriums, and meeting rooms on purpose. The public library was a civic institution from day one.

As others have said, reference is something we can do easily on the internet. But I would add that sitting down and studying a text with others is something best done in person. It’s a nice social experience and better achieves the goal (also gets lazy nerds like me out of the house).