Tool Share
If you're trying to make your house greener or set up a garden, one of the biggest drains on your budget is all those tools you have to invest in. Or do you? Not if there's a tool library near you. And there might be. In addition to stand-alone tool libraries like the West Philly Tool Library and the Santa Rosa (California) Tool Library, many public libraries loan out tools. Oakland's Temescal Branch Library has over 2,700 different tools available to borrow for carpentry, gardening, plumbing and electrical work. While there's no comprehensive list, Wikipedia lists tool libraries in a dozen states.
Libraries generally loan out hand tools; some also lend small power tools like sanders and chain saws. For bigger, more expensive power tools, an Internet search for "tool rental" will produce dozens of companies, from Home Depot to local hardware stores, that will rent you the tools you need for a fee that's much lower than the cost of buying them. (Home Depot even offers a "Tool School" to teach you how to use them.)
Tools aren't the only thing you may be able to borrow at a public library near you. Libraries don't limit themselves to books any longer, says Macey Morales, media relations manager at the American Library Association. Most lend DVDs, and many lend Wii and computer games, toys, framed art prints and all kinds of tools to help people with limited vision, hearing or other problems. And those Kill A Watt meters? You can borrow them from many libraries, too.
Many loan even more off-beat items. Princeton N.J.'s public library lends Flip video cameras. The Lewisburg Library, in South Salem, N.Y., lends passes to New York museums. (The Museum of Natural History pass is reserved every weekend for the next two months, reports director Cindy Rubino.) The Phoenicia Library, near New York's famous Esopus Creek, lends fly fishing poles. The Virginia Beach, Va. library lends backpacks filled with nature-study equipment. Other oddball items: CDs of local bands (Swampscott, Mass.), audiovisual equipment, including a karaoke machine (central Mississippi libraries), and knitting needles (Altoona, Wis.). So check out what your local library is lending -- or will start lending, if you ask it to.
