Superpatron

Berkeley (CA) Tool Library

One in a continuing series of clippings and stories about tool libraries, this one from a 2005 Berkeley Daily Planet:

On a recent Wednesday morning at 11:45, two pickup trucks and a station wagon had already pulled into the drive in front of the Berkeley Tool Lending Library at the corner of Russell and Martin Luther King Way.

Adam Broner, who maintains the library, and Bud Burleson, a retired city electrician who is filling in that day, wheeled out several containers holding an assortment of shovels, posthole diggers and other garden tools. On the wall Burleson hung the pole saws and below them he arranged several aluminum step ladders.

When Broner opened the two doors to the library, another busy day began. Some patrons came in returning tools, others were checking them out. Broner checked library cards and IDs while answering the phone that never seemed to stop ringing. Burleson tried to find a minute to attend to the ongoing job of sharpening a few tools.

Even though folks are often lined up several deep, Broner, who has been working at the tool library for 14 years, manages to be full of good humor and ready to dispense advice.

“This time of year, our garden tools are most in demand. In fact, I’m going to order some new weed eaters. We just can’t keep up with the demand,” he said.

There was a 2004 NY Times story - Library Science, Home Depot Style - here picked up at Sivacracy:

On a sunny Saturday this fall, patrons were lined up four deep at a public library branch in Berkeley, Calif. But they weren't there to check out best-sellers or a stack of videos.

"I'm returning the chop saw and a spade and a wheelbarrow I already put back in the shed," said a young woman in shorts and a T-shirt, hefting the saw onto the counter.

"You owe 20 bucks in fines," said a librarian, Jason Armstrong, whose wire-frame glasses fit the bookworm stereotype but whose chest tattoo suggested a less cerebral side. "Fifteen bucks for the chop saw and five bucks for the wheelbarrow."

Such is a typical exchange at the Berkeley Tool Lending Library, a branch of the library system started with a $30,000 federal community development block grant in 1979. Since then the budget has grown more than three-fold, and borrowers number in the thousands.

Beth Kohn in the San Francisco Bay Guardian has a bit more:

Berkeley and Oakland have made tool-lending services available through their public library systems. In 1979 the Berkeley Public Library started the Berkeley Tool-Lending Library (1901 Russell, Berk. 510-981-6101, www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/tool), the first of its kind in the Bay Area, with a grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The program still functions as part of the public library and continues to maintain personal relationships with the people borrowing its cement mixers and Sawzalls, even with an estimated checkout rate of 6,000 tools a month. "[It's] different than when someone checks out a book," tool-lending specialist Adam Broner says. "Someone's drain is clogged, or they need to do something before their mother comes to visit. Each tool has a story behind it."

The Berkeley library has served as an example for fledgling tool-lending libraries in other towns. Broner trained a colleague to establish a library in Portland, Ore., and at the invitation of the Berkeley Rotary Club, he gathered a collection of donated tools and set up a library in the small town of Chacala, Mexico.

North Portland Tool Library, Portland OR

From their web site:

NPTL: Tools and the Power to use them.

The North Portland Tool Library (NPTL) is a community resource that loans a wide variety of tools to community members free of charge. The Tool Library benefits North Portland residents by reducing the costs of maintaining and improving their homes, building community, and sustaining diverse, livable neighborhoods.

Registration with the Library is free to residents of North Portland. Please see the membership tab for additional details about registration and requirements.

The Library is located in the basement of the historic Kenton Firehouse at:
2209 N. Schofield, Portland OR, 97217

Metroblogging Portland writes:

North Portland has its own tool lending library and it is celebrating it's one year anniversery (in October 2005) with over 300 brand new tools it will lend out to residents for free. Yes people, FREE! The brainchild of Jason Hatch, Matt Moritz, Laura Dalton, and Jason Henshaw, the tool library is there to help maintain affordability and build community by providing these free resources to residents of North Portland. The library also offers different hands on workshops to the community to instruct people on the proper use of tools and tool safety.

This Old House Magazine says:

And in Portland, Oregon, Jason Henshaw stands behind the counter of the North Portland Tool Library doling out, for instance, a jigsaw and advice on how to use it to cut a doggie door out of a human-sized door.

Henshaw, a health-care administrator with a penchant for power tools, cofounded the tool library last October in the basement of an old firehouse. By providing home-improvement tips and everything from plumb bobs to table saws at no cost, the volunteers hope to fight urban blight and foster community pride. An added bonus: Locals never have to buy a tool they’ll use only once a decade.

Technorati Tags: oregon, portland, toollibrary

Oakland tool library

The Temescal Tool Lending Library branch of the Oakland Public Library (California) offers over 2700 tools available for loan, as well as books and how-to videos. The tools can be used for a variety of purposes, including carpentry, gardening, plumbing, and electrical work. The branch manager is Ty Yurgelevic.

A complete tool list of items available for borrowing includes roofing spades, a pick mattock, stud finders, a two-person tree saw, a electric drain snake (large and small), and dozens of other items.

Some articles about the library include
* 2002 East Bay Express, "Tools Rush Out" - Happy post-digging and weed-whacking!
* 2004 Oakland Tribune, "Tool Lending Library Revives Home Improvement Projects"

Yurgelevic apprenticed at the Berkeley tool lending library before starting out in Oakland.

(one in an occasional series of posts, in which I do the complete answer to Google queries that come in after the fact)

Tool libraries

There are a handful of libraries around the US with tools collections. The general idea is that library card holders can borrow axes, saws, power drills, roto-rooters (clean them before you bring them back!), and other rarely used but essential equipment for a few days.

I thought about this prompted by a posting in Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools about energy meters and how they can save you hundreds of dollars a year by identifying inefficient appliances. It turns out that the Ann Arbor District Library has four of these "line loggers" for patrons to borrow. (One of them is on reserve for me right now!) Figure out how much electricity your fridge or computer is using and take steps to conserve.

Cool Tools ran a piece on these tool lending libraries in 2004. He lists collections at the Oakland Tool Library, the San Francisco Tool Library, and the Berkeley Tool Library. I've seen others online Kansas City, MO run by the non-profit Westside Housing, a non-profit "toolmobile" run by the city of Columbus, OH, and the North Portland (Oregon) Tool Library. There's a list of tool-lending libraries in Wikipedia.