Solarpunk is a movement that envisions a future where we're responding intelligently to the environmental and social issues we face, with a focus on decentralized, sustainable, and community-driven solutions. Instead of using technology as a tool for exploitation, we harness it to support human needs and ecological health.
One concept that fits within the solarpunk framework is the Library of Things. A Library of Things is a community resource that allows people to borrow tools, equipment, and other goods that they only need occasionally or for a short period of time, instead of having to buy or rent them. This is a great way to enact solarpunk values with relatively low friction.
This model allows for more democratic access to stuff, while also curbing waste and consumerism. If you borrow from a Library of Things, that’s less stuff that you have to buy if you donate to a library, that empowers the rest of the folks using it.
This library can become a connective tissue for the community, turning it into a network of care, instead of individuals in proximity. This immediately makes that proximity meaningful, where users of the library are more likely to chat, form friendships, and build skills together that make the community better overall.
Libraries like this can also create a fertile ground for experimentation and creativity. When people have access to tools and things that they wouldn’t otherwise, combined with others to bounce ideas off of, this space can act as a launchpad for new ideas and designs to respond to community issues.
One of the most exciting things about this idea is that it’s already being implemented in some places. Toronto, Berkeley, and London all have their own takes on this.
Libraries are already super cool, and so having the ability to build a local solidarity economy around the library concept (while adding things to the design to make it more liberatory) is a really cool concept. Stuff like this is how we’ll get to a solarpunk future.
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My city has a free tool library through the local maker space. I’ve lived here for years and thought I knew about all our resources but I didn’t know about this until recently. Now I use it all the time for power tools, gardening hand tools, niche kitchen appliances, sewing tools/machines, etc. They even have ukuleles!
Here’s a way to check and see if your city has one:
Welcome to Make:’s Makerspace Directory, a comprehensive guide to the growing community of makerspaces around the globe. This directory is a
Now when we buy things that we only want occasionally (like a pasta machine or an axe) I’ll donate them so I don’t have to clutter up my closets and other people can enjoy it. It’s a way of giving back that doesn’t even cost me anything extra.
You can browse our city’s library tool online and check out and reserve things just like a book library. Volunteering there is a wonderful way to make local friends. Ours is now a pretty bustling little place!
If your city doesn’t have one and you have the time and energy, maybe you could start one!
I want to stream again SO BAD but the tool library I volunteer at is having a new year’s tool drive so I need to be there bright and early Monday mornings to help check tools in.
I need to figure out a regular time I can stream!!!! 😭😭😭
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An awful lot of housing clutter relates directly to the lack of community resources for temporary usage of occasional-use tools and supplies. The average kitchen for example contains a lot of appliances which are only used for special occasions, and a sort of Kitchen-Library could easily supply the necessary tools as-needed to an entire community without cluttering up everyone’s individual homes.
In other words - Not every household requires access to a power drill every single day, but an awfully large number of households have had to make permanent space for a power drill they bought specifically for those rare days when they have been needed.
Guelph Tool Library crows, acrylic painting on canvas Thanks to my mom for letting me know that the real Guelph Tool Library has picked a crow as its mascot, giving me the idea for this piece of "art". You, too, can send me your crow art ideas. Just keep it clean, kids.
This spring, Vancouverites may find renting a set of camping equipment as easy as borrowing a book from the library. The Thingery project is a recent initiative launched by Vancouver Tool Library founder Chris Diplock. The first Thingery pilot project was carried out in summer 2016, and Diplock reached agreements over the following months with the city of Vancouver, a local credit union, and various neighborhood groups to bring the idea to life.
This spring, Vancouverites may find renting a set of camping equipment as easy as borrowing a book from the library. The Thingery project is a recent initiative launched by Vancouver Tool Library founder Chris Diplock. The first Thingery pilot project was carried out in summer 2016, and Diplock reached agreements over the following months with the city of Vancouver, a local credit union, and various neighborhood groups to bring the idea to life.
A Thingery, as described on the project's website, is a self-service, "community-owned library of things" housed in a modified shipping container. Items, which can include tools, sports equipment, and cooking supplies, are donated or bought collectively by Thingery members. Borrowers reserve the tools online and pick them up through an access code system. Members pay a $50 one-time lifetime membership fee and a subsequent $29 annual fee for access to a world of tools. Some tools also carry small borrowing fees, although many are free.
One of Diplock's goals was to bring the concept behind the tool library, which he founded in 2011, into more Vancouver neighborhoods. In a city that's so vastly spread out, getting to a single tool library location isn't feasible for many Vancouverites. "We wanted to have [something like the tool library] on the scale of a lending library, with multiple branches and the tool library could not scale at that rate," Diplock says. "What we're trying to do is put [tool library-like facilities] directly in the neighborhoods and make them self-service."
Diplock says the level of buy-in from communities has been a motivating factor. "We're grateful that we have this much interest from the community."
He says the project is still too new to have a detailed profile of its users and potential users. "We don't yet have a real snapshot of who our borrowers are, but we're expecting a wide range of people, given that space limitations are an issue for many people. A lot of the apartments and condominiums people live in are fairly small, so there’s an appetite not to own equipment that would take up space."
The first Thingery opened on Dec. 2 in New Westminster, and four more Vancouver-area locations are in the works, scheduled to open in early 2018. Each Thingery is owned and maintained by its own neighborhood-based co-op, which also organizes donations and group purchases. Julia Hulbert is on the board of the Kitsilano Thingery co-op, which oversees a Thingery expected to open in February of next year in Kitsilano near downtown Vancouver.
"We have no place in Kitsilano where you can just go rent some tools or camping gear, and there’s a profound need for that," Hulbert says. "You have students, young families and other people in small apartments who just don’t have the space for a volleyball net or a camp stove."
Hulbert, an urban studies graduate student, says the Thingery's usefulness goes deeper than providing families with camping equipment on loan. "This was something I stumbled across on Facebook and I thought it was a really awesome premise," she says. "What drew me to it was the idea of building my own community in Vancouver. The sharing economy has a lot of potential to bring people together and help form new personal and community connections."
Hulbert and her fellow board members are hoping to organize regular community programs at and around the Thingery. A beach cleanup is scheduled for early spring as part of the group's membership drive, and more programs are in the works. "In a few years, I would love to see the Kitsilano Thingery have 500 members and great community programs and strong partnerships with community groups," she says. "I can see the concept spreading across Canada as a way to bring the localized sharing economy back to neighborhoods."
"Once we get started, I'm hoping to take out a bocce kit, and definitely an extra set of snowshoes," she says. "A Thingery membership is $50 for a lifetime membership, plus $29 per year, and a set of new snowshoes is about $150 and can be rented multiple times a year. It's really easy to get your investment back. It's also great to be able to borrow high-quality equipment, instead of buying cheaper equipment to save money and then having that equipment wear out."
Diplock and Hulbert would like to see the concept spread across the region, and potentially much farther. Diplock says he has already heard from people interested in establishing Thingeries outside of Vancouver, notably in surrounding municipalities and in Alberta. "It's great to know that we're building something that's scalable for local communities," he says. He urges anyone interested in establishing their own neighborhood Thingery to get in touch through the project website. "If it can work here in Vancouver, it can work almost anywhere."
