Illuminated by golden sun rays gleaming through its expansive windows, the Galesburg Public Library offers a quiet and cozy space for community members to get lost in their books.
But there’s a lot more to check out there than books.
With the addition of a Library of Things, the library’s services extend to a larger variety of items for patrons.
The Library of Things is a collection of curated items including laptops, headphones, internet hotspots, light therapy lamps, and cake pans.
It also has recreational offerings like puzzles and board games, and outdoor recreational materials like frisbee disc golf, pickleball, and a ping pong set.
“Another exciting thing we just added are puzzles for low-vision individuals. These are made of thicker material than puzzle pieces like plastic, and they also have a texture,” said Anne Giffey, cataloguing supervisor and assistant director of the Galesburg Public Library.
The Galesburg Public Library’s collection of things is part of a movement in American libraries to provide members with the ability to borrow items other than books. The idea is to allow people to try things out before investing in them, and also make items accessible to people who may not be able to afford them.
Other examples of things offered at the Galesburg library include CPR kits that come with tutorial videos and dummies of the torsos to practice on, and kits for children to explore topics like archeology and science.
Giffey said internet hotspot devices are one of the most popular items being checked out.
“Those are waiting lists for those to be checked out,” Giffey said.
After a suggestion from a community member at a senior citizens fair, the library recently added two kits for memory care to help people who are dealing with dementia. These kits have photographs, DVDs, prompts to talk about, and toys to spark conversation.
“We have one about farming and one about geography of the United States,” Giffey said.
Items in the Library of Things have different circulation periods. Members can check out materials to use at the library for a couple hours, or for up to seven days if they wish to take the items home with them.
“The staff usually look things over, and make sure everything seems to be in working order before they accept things back,” Giffey said. “Certainly if anything did happen, we would have a conversation with the patron. Sometimes people do lose things, or things do break inevitably.”
Giffey said patrons would be responsible for all or some of the replacement if items were damaged or lost.
The library received funding for many of the items in the Library of Things during the pandemic. When in-person programming wasn’t an option, funds got redirected to purchasing these items.
The Library of Things is still expanding, and so are other offerings at the library.
There’s a tech lab that takes appointments to use the 3-D printers and other equipment to help digitize materials.
The library also plans to open a skills lab later this year with a classroom setting, offering classes on potential topics such as bike repair and restoring clothing.
The library will host a celebration for donors to the skills lab on March 9. The lab will open at a later date.
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