I once owned five corkscrews. FIVE. I discovered this embarrassing fact during a massive decluttering session sparked by a leaky roof and subsequent emergency emptying of my kitchen cupboards. There they were, lined up on my countertop like some sort of wine-opening museum exhibit: the basic waiter’s friend from my university days, the fancy lever one my ex bought during his brief wine enthusiast phase, the electric one from my sister who apparently thought manually opening wine was too arduous, the decorative one shaped like a fish that I have absolutely no memory of acquiring, and—the kicker—a still-in-packaging one I’d bought in a panic before hosting a dinner party, having completely forgotten I already owned four perfectly functional alternatives.
My housemate Jun walked in, looked at my shamefaced corkscrew display, and burst out laughing. “This,” he said, gesturing dramatically at my collection, “this right here is why capitalism is winning.”
He wasn’t wrong. The absurdity of one person owning five tools that do exactly the same job—tools that spend 99.9% of their existence sitting unused in a drawer—suddenly seemed both funny and deeply stupid. Why do we individually own so many things we rarely use? Why does everyone on my street have their own lawn mower when they’re only used for maybe 30 minutes a week during summer? Why does every kitchen in Bristol apparently need its own pasta maker and bread machine to gather dust after the initial enthusiasm wears off?
These questions led me down a fascinating path exploring the growing world of community resource libraries, and eventually to the Thursday night when I found myself standing in a converted garage in Easton, officially donating three corkscrews to Bristol’s first “Library of Things.”
The concept is brilliantly simple: a lending library, but for stuff instead of books. Need a pressure washer for a weekend project? Borrow rather than buy. Want to try making pasta from scratch but not ready to commit to equipment? Check out a pasta maker. Having a garden party and need extra chairs? There’s a community resource for that.
Sarah, who runs the Bristol library with terrifying efficiency, took my corkscrews with the solemn gravity of someone accepting donated organs. “The fish one is particularly delightful,” she said, adding it to a meticulously organized shelf. “People always choose the whimsical tools over the practical ones. We have a hammer shaped like a dinosaur that’s rarely in stock.”
The Library of Things occupies what was once someone’s double garage, converted with volunteer labor and furnished almost entirely with donated shelving. The walls are lined with everything from power tools to cake tins, camping equipment to carpet cleaners, all tagged, categorized, and available to the community for nominal borrowing fees. It’s basically the grown-up version of Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood sharing message, but with impact drivers and margarita machines.
I should clarify that I didn’t initially walk into that garage as a believer. I walked in as a journalist researching an article about alternative consumption models, with my usual skepticism firmly intact. Would it be clean? (Yes, surprisingly immaculate.) Would it actually have useful things? (Absolutely—I spotted at least three items I’d considered buying in the past month alone.) Would it be run by intimidatingly perfect zero-waste people who’d judge my not-entirely-sustainable lifestyle? (No—Sarah later confessed to a secret fast fashion addiction she’s “working on.”)
What I found instead was something that felt both revolutionary and deeply traditional. Humans have shared resources since we first developed tools, after all. The idea that everyone needs to individually own rarely-used items is actually the strange historical anomaly, a product of post-war abundance, clever marketing, and the deliberate death of repair culture.
The membership process was surprisingly straightforward—proof of address, a small annual fee (with subsidy options for those who need them), and a cheerful orientation from Sarah that included the immortal line: “Please don’t bring things back covered in bodily fluids. It’s happened twice and honestly, I just can’t anymore.” Tool libraries keep it real, folks.
My first borrow was a hedge trimmer. My postage-stamp garden had developed aspirations to become a jungle, and the quotations I’d received from gardeners had caused me physical pain. Sarah demonstrated how to use it safely, reminded me about the return date, and sent me off like a somewhat nervous librarian lending a first edition to a child with sticky fingers.
Three hours later, I returned with a sense of accomplishment, several scratches, and a phone full of satisfying before-and-after photos of my newly tamed greenery. The experience cost me £7 in borrowing fees versus the £85 a gardener would have charged or the £60+ a new trimmer would have set me back. The environmental savings were even more significant—one more tool being used efficiently rather than another being manufactured, shipped, and eventually discarded.
I was hooked. Over the following months, I borrowed a pressure washer that transformed my grimy patio, a sewing machine that helped me repair rather than replace my favorite jacket, a tent for a weekend camping trip, and an ice cream maker for a catastrophically unsuccessful dinner party experiment that we shall never speak of again. Each borrow saved money and resources while connecting me with neighbors who shared advice along with equipment.
The social aspect, it turns out, is where these libraries truly shine. Traditional libraries build community through shared resources and spaces, and tool libraries are no different. When I borrowed a wallpaper steamer (don’t ask), I ended up in a 20-minute conversation with another member about the horrors of removing woodchip wallpaper, complete with sympathetic wincing and the exchange of contractor recommendations. I’ve seen people schedule their borrowing times so they can catch up with friends they’ve made through the library. Parents swap tips about which toys actually keep children entertained while returning items to the toy library section.
This community-building element isn’t just a nice bonus—it’s essential to the success of these systems. The tragedy of the commons doesn’t materialize when people feel connected to the resources and to each other. In the two years I’ve been a member, I’ve witnessed countless acts of quiet stewardship: people bringing in spare parts they happened to have, volunteering to repair damaged items, donating cleaning supplies, or simply treating borrowed items with more care than they sometimes treat their own possessions.
Kitchen equipment libraries might be my favorite iteration of this concept. Bristol’s Kitchen Library operates on alternate Saturdays from a church community hall and features everything from dehydrators to professional-grade stand mixers. The genius here is that they’ve paired the lending with skill-sharing workshops, so before you borrow that pasta maker, you can actually learn how to use the bloody thing instead of returning it with dough fossilized in crevices you didn’t know existed (speaking from mortifying personal experience).
Lisa, who runs these workshops, is a retired home economics teacher with limited patience for nonsense. “Half of these gadgets end up in landfill because people buy them, can’t figure them out, and give up,” she told me while demonstrating how to properly assemble a food processor. “It’s not just waste of money and resources—it’s a waste of confidence. People think they’re incompetent when really they just needed a proper introduction.”
Under her watchful eye, I mastered the mysterious settings on a sewing machine, learned that I actually hate making bread but love making cake (vital self-knowledge), and discovered that spiralizers are much less hassle than the Instagram influencers make them appear. More importantly, I developed the confidence to try things without committing to purchasing equipment that might not suit my needs or lifestyle.
Toy libraries might be the most obvious expansion of the traditional library model, and yet they remain surprisingly rare. The environmental impact of the toy industry is staggering—vast amounts of plastic molded into items with an average active use time measured in weeks or months before children outgrow them. Parents know the drill: expensive toy becomes briefly beloved, then joins the sad pile in the corner before eventually being donated, sold, or (too often) landfilled.
Bristol’s Toy Library operates out of a brightly colored shipping container in a park, run by Monica, a former primary school teacher with three children who told me she started it after “having an existential crisis while tripping over a plastic dinosaur at 3 AM.” The library stocks everything from baby toys to board games, outdoor equipment to fancy dress costumes, all meticulously sanitized between lendings.
“Kids are actually much better at the concept of borrowing than adults,” Monica explained as a solemn four-year-old carefully selected a marble run. “They haven’t yet been fully indoctrinated into ownership culture. They just want to play with different things, not necessarily own them forever.”
Parents, meanwhile, are often desperate for alternatives to the constant cycle of consumption that children seem to require. “I had a mum cry with relief when she realized she didn’t have to buy a $300 ride-on toy her kid would use for three months,” Monica told me. “She borrowed it for six weeks, her daughter got bored, and they moved on to something else without the guilt or waste.”
The barriers to starting these resource libraries are generally more logistical than conceptual. You need space, systems for tracking items, some basic maintenance capabilities, and committed volunteers or staff. Insurance can be complicated, especially for lending potentially dangerous tools. But communities are finding creative solutions—partnering with existing institutions like libraries or community centers, using volunteer teams, implementing sliding scale fee systems, and creating simple but robust checking processes.
I’ve visited similar initiatives across the UK now, from a rural tool share operated out of a converted horse box that travels between villages to a London-based baby equipment library that has saved parents thousands while reducing the mountains of barely-used gear that follow the arrival of each new human. Each has its own character and systems, but all share the core principle: we don’t all need to own everything we occasionally use.
For those inspired to start something similar, my advice after talking to dozens of organizers is: start small, partner with existing communities, focus on quality over quantity, create clear systems, and remember that you’re building a community resource, not just a storage facility. Begin with high-demand items that are expensive to buy but relatively easy to maintain—garden tools, event equipment, or specialty kitchen gear are good entry points.
And if starting something feels overwhelming, just participating makes a difference. I did eventually part with my remaining two corkscrews (keeping only the basic waiter’s friend, which is objectively the best anyway). My kitchen is less cluttered, my community has gained useful resources, and I’ve learned more from the conversations while returning items than I ever would have from owning them all myself.
Oh, and that ice cream maker disaster? Turns out the library runs a recipe swap alongside equipment lending. Sarah discreetly slipped me a foolproof vanilla recipe when I returned the cleaned machine, whispering, “This one’s grandmother-tested. Even I couldn’t mess it up.” The quiet solidarity of that exchange might just be worth more than all the gadgets in the world.
