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Why tool libraries fail and what makes them last

Why Tool Libraries Fail and What Makes Them Last

A tool library lends drills, ladders, pressure washers, and similar things the way a public library lends books. The idea is easy to like: most households own equipment that sits idle nearly all year, and one shared item could in principle replace many private purchases. In practice, most tool libraries stay small, depend on a handful of volunteers, and some shrink or close within a few years. The gap comes down to a short list of operational problems, and the libraries that last solve them in recognizable ways. Anyone deciding whether to start, join, or fund a library of things, or to build software for one, benefits from understanding both sides.

What the field looks like

A 2024 survey of 82 libraries of things in 11 countries, summarized by the nonprofit Shareable, found that the large majority were fully volunteer-run, worked with annual budgets below 10,000 US dollars, had average memberships under 200 people, had been operating for less than five years, and were open one to three days per week. A multiple case study of six libraries of things in the United Kingdom found that all relied on volunteers and on free or discounted space, and none were economically self-sufficient. A study of 23 operators presented at the 2023 ACM CHI conference described a recurring burden of manual intervention at every stage of the borrowing cycle, from cataloguing odd objects to spotting needed repairs. Yet the tool library at the Berkeley Public Library, which Shareable describes as the longest-running modern library of things, has lent since 1979.

Where tool libraries break

Volunteer burnout

A library open three afternoons a week needs someone at the counter every shift, plus people to inspect returns, chase late items, fix tools, and answer email. When a small core group carries all of it, the library is exactly as durable as their spare time. The Shareable toolkit warns that when any single person becomes too essential, the whole project is in jeopardy, and it found that larger independent libraries typically have at least one paid staff person, often a volunteer coordinator.

Peak demand

Demand clusters. Lawn equipment, pressure washers, and ladders are wanted in spring by many people, often on the same weekend. The Toronto Tool Library has described itself as a very seasonal operation that earns most of its revenue in spring and runs at a loss through fall and winter. A collection sized for average demand fails exactly when members most want it, and a member turned away at that moment may simply buy one.

Loan length

Long loans quietly destroy capacity. The Toronto Tool Library wrote that 14-day loans placed an unsustainable burden on the library and that nothing in its history had hampered sharing more than those loan terms. It moved to seven-day loans for everything. The West Seattle Tool Library goes further: lawnmowers go out for two days in spring but a week in autumn.

Repair, loss, and consumables

Shareable reports that about 60 percent of surveyed libraries' items were donated, often after long service. Things break and come back missing parts. Consumables such as sandpaper and cleaning solution are used up rather than shared. A collection with no repair budget slowly fills with items that cannot be lent. The Toronto Tool Library summarized the lesson in one line: having no maintenance fees means having no maintenance.

Insurance and liability

This page is general information, not legal or financial advice.

Lending power equipment to the public creates liability exposure. The Share Starter knowledge base, maintained by the Lending Library Alliance, notes that libraries run by or with municipalities may already be covered under an existing policy, while independent groups typically need to seek specialized nonprofit coverage. Shareable notes that items such as chain saws, scaffolding, and many table saws are frequent red flags for insurers. Inventory choices are therefore partly insurance choices.

Distance

A shared item only replaces purchases for people who can actually reach it. Minutes from a 2024 scrutiny commission meeting in the London Borough of Hackney record that most users of the Library of Things locker service there came from within about a one-mile radius. A member without a car will not carry a pressure washer across town, so the catchment of one location is small, and that caps how many households any one item can serve.

Funding

Shareable calls space potentially the most significant expense, and modest membership fees rarely cover it. The Toronto Tool Library reported that less than six percent of its earnings came from service fees and consolidated to a single location after permanently closing a second branch in 2020. A grant can buy tools, but space, staff, and repair recur every month.

What lasting libraries do differently

Join or partner with a public institution

The Berkeley tool library began with a 30,000 dollar federal Community Development Block Grant, a trailer, and about 500 tools. In 1988, Berkeley voters passed a library tax that allowed the service to be included in the library operating budget, and it is now free to adult residents and property owners. A 2022 Lund University thesis reviewing 90 libraries of things found that all 28 United States examples in its sample were extensions of traditional public libraries. In London, the Library of Things social enterprise places self-service lockers in public library buildings; the Hackney minutes describe a split in which the operator handles items, software, and maintenance while the council handles site access and promotion.

Price for borrowing, not against it

Per-loan fees can suppress use. The Montreuil library of things La BOM, described in the Shareable toolkit, replaced a low membership plus per-loan charges with a single higher annual fee that included all loans, and reported that loan volume tripled the following year. Others take the opposite approach on income: the West Seattle Tool Library treats all fees as suggested donations and says it is funded almost entirely through memberships and checkouts. The common thread is a simple structure that members understand and that still funds maintenance.

Track everything and act on the data

Lending software such as myTurn records loans, reservations, and repairs, and can automatically flag an item for maintenance at check-in and log the cost and time of each repair. That record shows which items are always out, which never move, and which cost more to keep than to replace. The West Seattle Tool Library does not allow reservations for items in limited stock, so that members without computer access are not consistently beaten to them. Usage history is a core planning asset, which is one reason local-first software and data ownership matter here.

Choose inventory by demand

Surveys, request lists, and seasonal rotation keep shelves aligned with what people borrow. Several copies of a high-demand item are often worth more than one copy each of many rarely requested ones. Standardizing on one battery platform simplifies charging and tracking.

Budget for repair

The Hackney minutes record maintenance costs of roughly 10,000 pounds per year and about 1,600 items repaired. Repair is a core recurring cost, and it overlaps with the wider argument for repairable products, since a shared item that can be fixed serves many more households than one that cannot.

A worked example of utilization math

The following is an illustrative example with assumed numbers, not data from any real library.

Assume one pressure washer, lent for 7 days, with 1 day for return, inspection, and cleaning, giving an 8-day cycle. Assume each interested household wants it about 1.5 times per year, and that 70 percent of that demand falls in a 16-week (112-day) spring and summer peak.

  • Peak capacity: 112 / 8 = 14 loans.
  • Peak demand: 0.7 x 1.5 = 1.05 loans per household.
  • Households served: 14 / 1.05, or about 13.

Averaged over the year, the item could handle about 45 loans, naively suggesting 30 households; the peak cuts that by more than half. Now shorten peak loans to 2 days plus 1 day of turnaround: capacity becomes 112 / 3, or about 37 loans, serving about 35 households. If most members can only pick up on Saturdays, however, each unit still goes out roughly once a week, and the gain mostly disappears unless the library adds weekday evening hours or self-service lockers. Loan length, opening hours, and the shape of demand matter at least as much as the number of items. This kind of cost-per-use reasoning connects to time prices, since what a borrower really pays includes the trip.

  • Why might a tool library with fewer items but shorter loans serve more households than one with a larger collection?
  • What are the tradeoffs between pay-what-you-can pricing and a single flat membership fee?
  • Should public library budgets fund tool lending the way they fund books?
  • Essay idea: compare the volunteer-run model with the public library model as institutions for shared ownership.
  • Essay idea: how does seasonal demand shape the economics of any sharing system, from tools to bicycles?
  • AI prompt idea: "Given a tool library loan log, identify items that should get a second copy and items that should be removed."
  • AI prompt idea: "Model how many households one lawnmower can serve under different loan lengths and opening hours."
  • AI prompt idea: "Draft a repair-or-replace scoring rule using item cost, repair cost, and borrowing frequency."

See also

References

Last checked: October 2026

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