What can a library card get you? Try a popcorn maker or ukulele.
The first clue to this library’s offbeat lending habits sits inside a tall glass display case near the entrance. Sprinkled amid storybooks, atlases, and a globe are a remote-controlled drone, an electric balloon pump, a DJ mixing board, and a Nintendo game console.
And those aren’t the strangest items available to borrow. A few steps away – past a Lego dinosaur and a pair of hulking automated checkout towers – an open binder lists more than 100 nonbook offerings, from bounce houses and hedge trimmers to a ukulele, a popcorn maker, and a $585 cheese warmer.
The Dewey Decimal System never saw this coming. It’s called “the library of things,” and Placentia’s collection is part of a nationwide movement that is reshaping public libraries and how they serve patrons in the digital age.
More than half of America’s 9,000 public library districts now lend nontraditional objects, says Maria McCauley, president of the Public Library Association. Many have also revamped their event calendars to include such programs as punk rock aerobics, speed dating, cow milking demonstrations, and indoor miniature golf.
These and other innovations reflect the ingenuity of librarians in adapting to changing community values and needs. “Libraries all over the country are doing creative things like this,” Ms. McCauley says.
The beyond-books trend began, depending on who is asked, either a decade ago in Sacramento, California, or in the 1800s, most notably in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb whose library featured a boxing ring, eight billiards
