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This blog is going to be all about one of the most fascinating topics I have ever heard of as it pertains to library science. While conducting my research and looking through a bunch of different library blogs this week. I just found out about a “library of things”. Let me tell you how excited I am about this concept!

But first, I think we need to understand what I believe to be the purpose of a library. You see in my mind a library is more than just a building of books. A library serves as a lighthouse for the community, a basin of societal change and growth. In a library, you can find programs that are used to enrich its users intellectually and emotionally through the learning and acquisition of new skills. So a "library of things" would simply be taking that concept to the physical. Allowing users within a community to now actively bond and grow past their social-economic means while also enriching themselves and their neighborhoods.

So I stumbled upon this concept while I was on the HackLibrary school blog! They had released an article entitled “10 ideas for building libraries of things” and it is incredibly fascinating!

Library Of Things 

Note Austin, 2021

This list taken directly from the article gives you 10 great starting points for building “A library of things”!

1. Games and Puzzles

2. Toys and STEM Kits

3. Seeds and Gardening Supplies

4. Tools

5. Sewing and Craft Supplies

6. Baking and Kitchen Supplies

7. Musical Instruments

8. Sports Equipment

9. Camping and Outdoor Gear

10. Electronics/Technology

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 Looking at this list you can easily see how a community could use each and every category listed. You can also see how each one of these categories when thought of in conjunction with a library could increase community engagement. As well as lower the overall need in low socio-economic areas for families to buy these low use high-cost items. From board games and puzzles that you may only need to use once a week for a family game night to seeds and garden supplies that can be used to help start a community garden to help reduce food needs. This type of program could be used in urban and rural environments in order to facilitate a large number of lessons in not just youth but in older users as well.

As an inner-city youth from a low socioeconomic background finding out that some libraries actually loan out objects is mind-blowing. The ability to borrow a guitar or a sewing machine would have been life-changing when I was younger. Just thinking of all the different hobbies I could have tried out or how many different skills I could have picked up just from my local library is astonishing. This would definitely be something that I would consider writing a grant for at any library that I am a part of. To think of the ways that this could change a young adult's or even a college student's life if they were given these types of objects along with instruction manuals or maybe classes on how to use these things in the library. Changing the meaning in the younger generation of just what the idea of a library is. 

 (Image credit: David Wall via Getty Images)

5 of the most famous ghost stories in America

1. The Flying Dutchman

2. The Bell Witch

3. Casper

4. Bloody Mary

5. The Vanishing HitchHiker

Noted Brown 2019

    Before you see my top five poems from the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Jerico Brown's newest book “The Tradition”. here is a brief review of the anthology as a whole and if you would like to see a full long-form report on Jericho's Brown unique writing style and the subject matter you may follow the link to an article that I have also written.  

    The tradition written by Pulitzer prize winner Jericho Brown brings mythological imagery and Afro-American historical subtext together to weave tales of victimhood and self-understanding to a new level.

     The Tradition questions why and how we’ve become accustomed to terror: in the bedroom, the classroom, the workplace, and most importantly, in our day-to-day interactions. From mass shootings to rape to the murder of unarmed people by police, Brown interrupts complacency by locating each emergency in the garden of the body, where living things grow and wither—or survive. 

    Jericho brings you into the mind-body and spirit of the queer Afro-American experience.  In The Tradition, Brown creates poetry centered on queer male blackness, and how it's subject to the powers that be. His poems are at times soft and vulnerable but also fierce, riveting, and inspiring (Brown 2021)

1. Ganymede

2. Flower

3. The Tradition

4. The Card Tables

5. Duplex

Reference

Austin, B. (2021, December 11). The Secret to the Library of Things - EveryLibrary. Medium. https://medium.com/everylibrary/the-secret-to-the-library-of-things-256e9e361b65

Brown, J. (2019). The Tradition (Later Printing ed.). Copper Canyon Press.

Brown, M. B. (2021, December). The Tradition Long Form Report. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nmwt_vzP7Anq-GBD8tsrqShrDSB6qea909ee_NfTNFE/edit?usp=sharing

Radford, B., & Gordon, J. (2022, January 19). Top 10 most famous ghosts. Livescience.Com. https://www.livescience.com/11364-top-10-famous-ghosts.html

Richland Library. (n.d.). Library of Things | Richland Library. Richlandlibrary.Com. https://www.richlandlibrary.com/libraryofthings

Szmodis, P. (2022, February 20). 10 Ideas for Building Libraries of Things. HLS. https://hacklibraryschool.com/2022/02/22/10-ideas-for-building-libraries-of-things/