Now that’s a handy tool
January 13th, 2010Here’s a great idea from Portland: a tool lending library. The Oregonian has the story:
If you need a table saw, a 10-foot pipe clamp or a 20-foot pruner, you’ve normally got three choices: Buy it, rent it or borrow it from a neighbor.
Portland is fast becoming a leader in a fourth way: checking it out for free at a tool lending library.
The city’s first nonprofit tool library, founded in 2004 in North Portland, is up to 2,300 members. Its second, in Northeast, has already drawn 800 members in 16 months and just expanded to a far bigger space. A third, in southeast Portland, is scheduled to open this spring, which would make Portland the only U.S. city with a trio.
The volunteer-run tool libraries offer low-cost home and garden lessons as well as tools. They help people save money and connect to their community.
Imagine: guys would no longer have an excuse to stuff their garages with every tool they see at Home Depot. Of course, that wouldn’t stop them. On a positive note, divorce or death (as males mostly croak first) coupled with the surviving spouse’s desire to sweep away the past means a good portion of these boy toys might eventually end up in the library:
About 900 of the more than 1,100 tools at the Northeast Portland Tool Library were donated, helping give the library a hardware store’s worth of inventory.