The Milpitas Library now hosts a Library of Things, where patrons can borrow a wide range of items and return them after three weeks. The program is brand new and hasn’t been promoted yet, project leader and community librarian Kelly McKean said.
The Library of Things, a vertical stand located near the back of the library entrance lobby, has various item cards organized into five separate cardholders. The five categories are children-focused items, health and wellness, technology, hobbies, and kitchen, McKean said. Among the 22 items available for rent are blood
pressure monitors, happy lights for seasonal depression and mood therapy, a karaoke machine, a small bluetooth projector, a Wacom drawing tablet, a GoPro, and a sous vide machine, she added.
“This is a way to save resources, share items, and save space,” McKean said. “That’s our goal with it.”
Multiple resources are being rolled out, student member of the Milpitas Library Education and Advisory Commission Yunha Park said.
“Sewing machines, instruments, and cooking utensils are going to be available for borrowing,” Park, a senior at MHS, said. The online website, sccld.org, is the best way to access the library’s resources, McKean said.
The Library of Things catalog will be live on the website for viewing as of Nov. 6, she added. The Milpitas Library also provides many other resources for those with the free e-resource card, which students in MUSD and all other residents of Santa Clara County automatically get,McKean said.
“You can log onto our website and access any of our e-resources,” McKean said. “We have downloadable books, movies, music.”
The library also has Brainfuse, an online tutoring service with live virtual tutoring and college essay feedback, McKean said. Members can also use LinkedIn learning, an American online learning platform, she added. “You don’t have to go out and pay for a subscription,” McKean said. “You can do it through the library.”
The library’s strategic plan is to belong, connect, and discover, McKean said. The Library of Things, county park passes, and Discover and Go passes that let users enter over 50 museums in California for free with their library card fall under our goal of discovery, she added.
“One of our goals is under a subsection called ‘we innovate,’ and it was to innovate without the fear of failure,” McKean said. “Everyone here really liked that because it meant that we could try something, see if it works, but not be afraid that it wasn’t going to work.”
The Library of Things team looked at what other libraries, like those in San Jose, Mountain View, Redwood City, and Berkeley were doing and how their communities responded to their programs, McKean said. The
team also looked at what the City of Milpitas already has for the community, like the tools they lend out for home repair, she added. “That’s where we got our inspiration from,” McKean said.
Seven library staff, including McKean, worked on the Library of Things, McKean said. Their background research included attending conferences and webinars, speaking to local libraries about policies and procedures, and researching the items themselves to ensure quality, she added.
“The hardest part was choosing what things to offer”, McKean said. “Because we wanted everything.”
After six months, the team will get feedback from everyone who’s borrowing items and make
decisions about the success and future of the Library of Things, McKean said.
Many libraries help people get jobs, have internet access when people can’t afford their own internet access, lend out tools to fix things in your house, and have financial information on what cars to purchase, social studies teacher Michael Cummins said.
“It’s the best part of collectivism,” Cummins said. “We all pay a little bit in our taxes to get something back.”