Want a Library of Things in your neighbourhood?
Are you fed up of wasteful consumerism, and want to do something about it? Ready to roll your sleeves up and start Library of Things where you are? We can help!
First up, have a watch of this video to see Library of Things in action:
Thanks BBC London News for the feature!
Do your neighbours want to borrow too?
You can now start a campaign page – like a petition – to call for a Library of Things in your neighbourhood. You can share the campaign with your friends and neighbours and gather their votes. This helps to build a local movement around the idea, and helps show your council that this is a service that your community wants.
Before you start a campaign – have a read through the rest of the information on this page to learn a bit about partnering with us.
Partnering with us
It might seem like a simple idea, but we’ll be honest – running an item lending library or rental offer is hard work. Sourcing and maintaining the items, recruiting and training staff or volunteers, finding and kitting out an affordable space, building or configuring technology, sorting insurance and health and safety, customer service, fundraising…
We partner with councils, communities, housing providers & retailers to make it much easier. Our partners get access to:
✔ Our 8+ years’ experience of getting communities borrowing
✔ Support to access set-up funds, via council sustainability budgets, our network of sponsors & our crowdfunding experience
✔ Affordable spaces – support to identify and shortlist potential host spaces, using our track record, templates & in-house expertise
✔ Discounted quality Things & a circular supply chain, through our relationships with manufacturers like Bosch
✔ Bespoke software & self-serve lockers, co-designed with communities to enable convenient & joyful borrowing
✔ Responsive remote customer service, helping borrowers with queries, payments, forgotten parts etc
✔ Smart systems & training, such as maintenance & marketing training, insurance, a pricing model, finance and impact dashboards…
✔ A trusted, collaborative partner! As a mission-locked social enterprise held accountable by our stakeholders, we take our partnerships seriously
What’s needed to start Library of Things?
We look for these ingredients before getting started in a neighbourhood:
3. Evidence of community demand
Before we get started anywhere, we want to know that a) we’re invited and b) that the local community actually want to borrow!
So we look for a local campaign or suggestions for brilliant community networks who might be interested.
1. Set-up fees
Typically paid for by council environment sustainability funds, this ‘commissions’ us to kickstart & operate a LoT kiosk in one location (includes kiosk, software, items & repair processes, insurance, customer service, marketing, local recruitment/training, impact reports…)
2. A community hub to host a kiosk
A welcoming space like a library or reuse/repair hub that:
• is open min. 6 days/week
• is accessible to the public
• has 6.5+ metres of wall space
• has some existing footfall
Our partners so far
