Borrow Tools for Free at Tool Lending Libraries

If you think about how tools are used, unless you are a professional carpenter or plumber or something like that, generally tools spend a lot more time sitting around gathering dust than being used. You might only pull out that ratchet set or drill two or three times a year for a few minutes at a time!

To address this situation and simplify people's lives (as well as helping their budgets), some areas of the United States have instituted tool lending libraries. A tool lending library functions much like a regular library. You open up an account with them and get a library card by showing government issued photo identification that shows you have a local address somewhere within the area that the library serves. Once you have that, you borrow tools that are in stock by checking them out with your card, free of charge! Some tool lending libraries even have heavy equipment, and most have a wide variety of instructional manuals to help you with your tasks and projects.

Fifteen states currently have some form of tool lending library. In California's Bay Area, the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, Santa Clara and Santa Rosa all have tool lending libraries that are offshoots of the public library system. San Francisco also previously had one, but it is closed indefinitely, though there apparently are plans to re-open it at some unspecified future point. The city of Loma Linda also maintains a tool lending library.

The progressive Bay Area is not the only area of the country to have such a library, usually centered on the larger cities. Tool libraries can be found in Kansas in Wichita, Michigan in Ann Arbor and Gross Pointe, Missouri in Kansas City, Montana in Missoula, New York in Buffalo and Rochester, Columbus in Ohio, Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Tennessee in Franklin, Utah in Orem, and Washington in Seattle. Portland, Oregon also has three separate tool lending libraries within city limits, although only non-profit groups with identification can borrow from the Hands On Greater Portland library. This is also true of Toolbank in Atlanta, Georgia. Hands-On New Orleans is another one set to launch sometime in 2009. Wikipedia maintains a list of tool libraries, though it may not be completely current at any given time.

Right now, that's still a fairly small sampling of the United States that has access to such libraries. If you don't have one in your area, however, why not start one? All you really need are some old donated tools, a facility in which to keep them, and some sort of a checkout system. Software-based checkout may not even be necessary if it's a smaller community where everyone knows each other. In a larger community, you might be better off pitching the idea to the city council. If you can find sources for donations who say they'll support such a project, and make suggestions on how to manage it and what software to use, that would go even farther in making a case for having one in your area.