A Library for EVERYTHING YOU NEED...

[RickLee]

..I was enjoying my local library. In it I can get for FREE for a short-term..
-books
-music
-dvds
-audio books
-browse magazines
-newspapers

So, in this economy, why not have us create an Everything Else Library, made up of donated things, to allow the local community to borrow FREE for a short-term..

-clothing
-snow throwers
-lawn mowers
-baby furniture
-dvd players
-board games
-bbqs
-piano lessons
-paint brushes
-pickup trucks
-moving vans
-vacuum cleaners
-musical instruments
..and anything else?

...would this work and be of benefit in today's world?

[Philip Brewer]

There are a lot of constraints on what things do well for lending. Books work well for several reasons. They're reasonably durable, and even if they take some wear, they usually remain readable. They're also pretty standard--any volume of The Complete Walker IV is as good as another, and (when they're new) they're available in essentially unlimited quantities, so every library can buy one. Each one is also reasonably priced, so the library isn't at huge risk when it lends one--and the borrower isn't at huge risk in case a book goes astray.

For many of the things on your list, one or another of those conditions isn't true. A truck is very expensive, making it a large capital investment--and putting both the lender and the borrower at risk in case of an accident. Lawn mowers, snow blowers and other such mechanical devices don't degrade as gracefully under normal wear and tear--they work fine until something breaks, and then they don't work at all. (There's also the issue that everybody will tend to want them at exactly the same time--the morning after a big snowfall, or the first nice weekend day after a rainy spring.)

Having said all that, though, you're absolutely right. It's insane for everybody in the neighborhood to have their own lawnmower, their own backyard grill, their own snow blower, and so on. (Or, rather, it's not so much insane as a reflection of the fact that, as a society, we're extremely wealthy--we can afford for everyone to have a complete set of gardening tools sitting idle in their garage 95% of the time.)

It's interesting that you thought of a library, rather than informal sharing between neighbors. That's become very much the model (in the United States, at least)--what used to be ordinary neighborly behavior has been institutionalized. (For example, I share a pair of washing machines and a large clothes drier with my neighbors--but it's a machine bought by and serviced by the apartment complex.)

I wrote about this a while back in a post called Why don't people share more.

[lucille]

I think there are some issues with the idea as Philip mentioned. There are also people who simply don't understand or don't get it that accountability goes around. I wouldn't trust my neighbor who can't figure out how to maintain their home to properly maintain a borrowed snow blower or carpet shampooer.

I do see this community passing around concept in some of the things that go through Freecycle groups. Kids things and baby gear make the rounds. As one person is done needing it the offer it, someone else uses it and they puts it back on the list.

We have done this with items we acquired off of Freecycle, used for a while and then put them back on Freecycle.

[Philip Brewer]

What's lacking nowadays are the social structures around sharing. Back when borrowing and lending were routine, it was critically important that your behavior met with other's acceptance, because it was really tough to get along if you couldn't borrow things--nobody was rich enough to have everything they needed.

In the comments to my sharing post, somebody suggested that I'd made a world where friends and neighbors shared sound better than it was--that neighbors were as mean-spirited and spiteful as people are today. The social pressure to be a good neighbor went way beyond just taking good care of the stuff you borrow, with being excluded from the in-group a serious matter--something that could break your finances, if you lacked access to something that you couldn't get along without.

Still, I think we could move toward more sharing without going that far. Nothing would increase everyone's standard of living more than sharing among neighbors.

[Xin Lu]

That's why it's cool to live in a coop. We have random things like bikes and saws to borrow from the "library". There are books, too, of course. It's kind of like a commune without a cult leader.