Resources

"They did a couple of different surveys. They they had one "bucket" survey asking about kinds of things, saying "We're thinking about opening a Library of Things collection" and gave them categories like musical instruments, board games, lawn games, tools, a kitchen appliances. And then people, you know, just voted on those and gave us suggestions"
(Michele Caldwell, Beaverton City Libraries, 2024)

In interviews conducted during our "Staying Afloat" report it was clear that many successful Libraries of Things had immensely diverse and varied collections that grew and shrunk over time in relation to what the community wants, what they already have, and what works and doesn't work for lending in that particular patron audience. We've prepared a template community needs assessment based on our findings below.

Download Needs Template

"We actually had a committee back in 2015 that met to talk about Library of Things. Each of the members of this little committee got assigned to 2 or 3 libraries that had Things collections, and we came up with a list of questions for those libraries and interviewed them, and then kind of came back and talked about like what did we hear that was working? What's not working. And we came up with these guidelines based on the feedback that we got from other libraries."
(Lisa Gresham, Whatcom County Library System, 2024)

In our interview with collection manager Lisa Gresham from Whatcom County Library System she spoke about the importance of consistent logistics for the selector process and logistics of intaking any new "Thing" item to make sure its not only an item the community wants, but that the library workers want, love, and that all members of staff can support during transit, checkout, check-in, and maintenance. With permission, we've included a copy of their collaborative guidelines below

Download WCLS Collection Manual

"It's just kind of a draw for people to come up and go "Hey, what's that? I didn't know you guys had that" and it's a good conversation starter. So we take, we take Library of Things "Things" to most of the pop ups that we do."
(Lisa Gresham, Whatcom County Library System, 2024)

We were in awe of the immense diversity of collections we saw in contrast to prior research which painted a picture of many single-item collections for things like Tools or Toys. From pans, karaoke machines, ghost hunting kits, and air quality testers, The creativity in collection development prompted us to want to start a photo gallery and challenge to capture all these diverse "Things" in action outside the library.

On 12/11/2024 We'll be including a small collection of photos in this spirit!