By Anne DeGrace
With the solar eclipse looming and nary a CSA-approved pair of viewing glasses to be found, the Library got a few calls about the possibility of borrowing a pair from us. The best we could offer was a how-to-make-a-pinhole-camera plan from You Tube. Astronomically speaking, the stars didn’t quite align.
It wasn’t such a stretch for folks to call the library to help solve a problem, offer advice, or lend something unusual. The Nelson Public Library can lend you a membership to Touchstones Nelson or the Kootenay Gallery in Castlegar, a Kill a Watt Portable Power Reader to monitor your home power consumption, or a Kobo or Nexus tablet, for example.
Folks who travel or have lived in larger centres may be familiar with some of the other offerings in libraries these days, items often made possible by partner organizations. An astronomical society put telescopes for borrowing in 80 Massachusetts libraries, for example, and had Monday’s solar eclipse path been a little closer, I’ll bet they’d have provided glasses, too.
Nearly anything you can imagine borrowing is on loan at a library somewhere in the world. Board games mean there’s life after Boardwalk and Park Place; sports equipment means a fun day with your kids is as close as your library card.
Tool and musical instrument libraries are becoming more common all the time in libraries with large budgets and room for a tuba or two. Check it out with a bandsaw and make your own euphonium!
Other weird and wonderful borrowables include flags, cameras, cooking equipment, animal skeletons, artwork, knitting needles, and karaoke machines. There’s even a library where you can check out a therapy dog for the day, leaving you with improved confidence, a warm glow, and stray hairs struck to your pantlegs.
Tracey Therrien, our new Chief Librarian, recalls a “Repair Café” that happened at her former library in Gibsons where people who could fix things and people who needed things fixed came together to share information and expertise, resulting in a whole bunch of working whatsits and new friends. “Libraries are more and more about bringing people together,” she observes.
Last spring, local folks got to check out their fellow Nelsonites in our Human Library, which aimed to foster understanding and break down barriers by providing space for conversation and discovery. Originally conceived in Denmark, the now-worldwide initiative offers books with titles such as Homeless, Muslim, Trans Person, or ADHD to name just a few. Stories are shared, strangers become friends, and the world becomes a little smaller. Watch for another Human Library opportunity in the coming year.
There are all sorts of makerspaces that can happen in libraries today, from high tech — expensive design and other computer programs available for Library use — to hands-on, such as the craft kits that appear from time to time in our teen and kids’ sections.
At the Nelson Public Library there are a few hurdles to leap before we can start lending, say, Hallowe’en costumes or Santa suits. It’s a matter of capacity: in budget, person-power, space, and logistics. But with creative thinking and a little help from our friends, you just never know what you could one day borrow from your library — even eclipse-viewing glasses. We’ll try not to miss that boat again.
Of course, there’s a bit of time. The next eclipse to come anywhere near Nelson will be in 2044 — and by then you might be able to borrow a pair of glasses and a tuba, the better to herald that returning star.
Anne DeGrace is the Adult Services Co-ordinator at the Nelson Public Library.