This is a CTP of initiative: Shareable‐ ShareBloomington (USA)
This CTP (CTP2) consist of the development of a Tool Library established in June 2015. Tool libraries, which have been around since at least the 1970s, offer communities a way to share resources that would otherwise remain unused in drawers and garages. These resources include anything that one might need, either for free or for a small fee. By providing access to tools, these libraries help to build resilient communities, they empower their users, they lessen neighbourhoods’ ecological footprints and they help to beautify areas.
(See http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-to-start-a-tool-library-in-your-community and also see: https://www.facebook.com/glennstoolshare/)
When a friend of Ryan died, he left a garage full of tools behind. His friend was a metal sculptor, so the tools he left behind were all big machines including pipe-bending, and metal-bending machines, anvils, and all sort of pressers. As Ryan explains: “that was another type of turning-point where all of a sudden we had like thousands of tools that we did not know what they were, and we had to turn them into some kind of community resource.” Together with some others, Ryan decided to make a tool library out of his friends’ collection. Ryan describes the tool library at shareBloomington as follows:
“The reason that people are excited about it, is not just because they save money borrowing a tool instead of buying it. It is because it changes how they relate to other people in their community and especially it changes how they relate to people through material items. And so, I think that people see sharing projects as being more about like social, re-integration and building up of social ties and social networks. And that is a very healing, nurturing kind of thing.” (Ryan)
Eventually, in cooperation with other organizations and volunteers, Ryan, Andrea and others active at shareable, succeeded to replace the tools and find a suitable space to demonstrate them. According to Ryan the tool library has a large variety of tools that would be of good use for people who need such a tool. And instead of buying or borrowing it for a high market price in a store, people of the town can borrow the tools for free or a very low price.
This Critical Turning Point is co-produced in three aspects.
Firstly, the CTP was co-produced by the parents of Ryan’s friend, who trusted Ryan and gave permission to take responsibility over the tools. After contestation with other groups who wanted the tools (see section contestation), Ryan managed to keep the tools and make it a community resource as promised.
Secondly, volunteers played an important role in helping with the cleaning and ordering of the tools. Ryan explains that his friend who died, had stopped taking care of the tools, and so they became rusty and disorganized. Also the garage where the tools where stored, was very dirty and humid; “We did not feel comfortable renting out tools that were dirty, we did not know if they were working or not, we did not know what they were. They were not cleaned. So, until we had all the tools catalogued and cleaned and in working order, we did not feel comfortable lending them out to people, as a matter of safety.”
According to Ryan, without the help of volunteers, it would have been a very long process to make the tools ready for the tool library: “The tools were all very rusty and not in good working order. And so volunteers would clean them up, and then oil them and then sort them. And the organizers would help showing them how to do the cleaning, how to do the organizing, how to do the oiling. And we also did things like making food, making coffee, making tea, and have people sign in and sign out and you know, just manage the operation.”
Eventually, Ryan and others active at ShareBloomington, managed to gather 15 to 20 volunteers to help with the overall cleaning of the tools and with the opening of the tool library.
Lastly, the Centre for Sustainable Living, has played a significant role in giving the tool library a successful start, as they offered space for the tools. As mentioned before, the garage where the tools were in, was full and dirty, and could not be used to demonstrate the tools properly. Also, the garage was located at the far west-side of the town. On the contrary, the Centre for Sustainable Living is right in de centre of town, it is very easy and accessible to get to: “Ryan and I were working at the Centre for Sustainable Living and so we talked to the other board members and we asked if we could occupy a section of the building temporarily to keep the tools, and we could do so. The building is big enough that we could actually host the entire tool library there”. (Andrea)
Even though the space at Centre for Sustainable Living is not available anymore since recently (see CTP 4), the centre was a great help for ShareBloomington with the opening of the tool library in the summer of 2015.
Death of friend who owned many tools. One of the most crucial events for the turnout of the tool library at ShareBloomington is related to the death of Ryan’s friend in December 2014, Glenn Carter. As mentioned before in CTP 1, according to Ryan, his friend got mentally sick after the doctor had changed his medication and then he killed himself. Oddly enough, the night that he had killed himself a friend of him (and of Ryan) found him in the garage, where he usually worked as a metal sculpture: “It was the night that my friend found him, she is like going through this trauma-process like: “What do we do?” She did not really know how to process, but when we were talking on the phone, this is like 3.00 in the morning, she is like: “What about his tools? Is the landlord going to take his tools or are they going to sell his tools?” She is just kind of talking almost to herself without listening to whatever, you know. She is talking and talking and said: Oh a tool library, why don't we make a tool library?” (Ryan)
According to Andrea the garage was packed with tools, were obviously no one had taken care of for a long period. As she emphasizes: “It was packed, completely packed. You could not even walk in there. The first time it was so overwhelming because we would come in and I did not even know where to start. There was so much. It was dirty, it was dark, it was humid, it was cold.”
After a phone conversation with his friends’ mother, Ryan got permission to use the tools for a tool library. Hence, Ryan and his friend set up a funeral service, a memorial service, and in the time between the death of his friend and the public memorial service, Ryan and his friends got together and seriously discussed whether they could make a tool library out of his collection that he had left behind. And so at the memorial service they announced that they were going to build a tool library in his honour.
ShareFest Bloomington. Eventually, the tool library was ready to be demonstrated at ShareFest in June 2015 (see CTP1) to a wide public, where it gained a lot of publicity. According to Andrea, one of the reasons that the tool library is being successful is because the person who committed suicide was known in town for the work he did when he was still a live. Thus people showed a lot of dignity when he died; “A lot of people knew this person and really respected him. And so everybody was really excited about the idea, starting this tool library”.
This CTP involves contestation due to two reasons;
Firstly, it was not an easy task to make a tool library with this specific tools, as they were big and not known among Ryan and his friends. They needed a lot of volunteers who wanted to help with the cleaning and replacing the tools that were stored in the garage. As Andrea Explains: “The tool library, that one has been a challenge and for many reasons I think. One of them is that the place where the tools are stored was pretty dirty. And the tools… So our friend towards the end of his life, I think he just like stopped going to the garage where the tools were and it was winter and it got flooded and everything got rusty. He used to be a metal-worker and there was like metal-dust everywhere. And so, I mean, it took us over a year to take all the tools out of the garage” (Andrea).
Moreover, the garage was not a suitable space to keep in the tools, as it was not clean and big enough. For this reasons the ShareBloomingotn community decided to replace the tools to the Centre for Sustainable Living, who had offered an empty space for the tools. This, however led to contestation between Ryan and others who wanted to keep the tools. The tools were originally located on the far west side of town, tucked away in a garage behind the house: not a very accessible place. Instead, according to Ryan, the Centre for Sustainable Living is right in de centre of town, it is very easy to go there, it is accessible and so Ryan and some others wanted the tools to be in the Centre. But the person who owned the garage was involved in an eco-village project with others. They did not want the tools to leave, because they had various kinds of do-it-yourself construction projects going on. In their eyes it was excellent to have all the tools available right next to their property. Ryan explains that they were not happy to find out that the tools were going to be replaced: “For them, it was like: Why are you taking this tools we need them for our project. We said that we are not taking them, you can check them out just like anyone else in the community, but they need to be accessible for the entire community. And they did not like that answer. So, that was a very prolonged tension over where the tools should live.” (Ryan)
Since there were disputes concerning the ownership of the tools and concerning where they should go, Ryan spoke to his friend’s parents, who had told him to make the tools a community resource. They agreed to get the tools legally safe by getting the agreement on paper and documented. Thus they talked to some lawyers and drafted the paperwork to make an official transfer property from the parents to Shareable organization. As Ryan states: “That gave us the legal authority to go and tell the other group: Yes, we know that there are still lingering tensions and that sucks, but these do belong to this organization (ShareBloomington) for community purpose and we want you to be able to have access to the tools just like anyone else in the community, but until that is established you cannot just hold these for yourself. It is for everybody. So, then there was some tension”.
These tensions are resolved now, and ShareBloomington has the full responsibility over the tools.
According to Ryan, they were not sure if the tool library would be successful. As he states: “Part of that process was kind of doing a rough feasibility estimate of whether or not we had the institutional resources to make that happen.”
For example, they did not have the space yet for the tools when they decided to make a tool library. In the first instance, they thought that the garage would be a good place to keep the tools. However, after a while they, noticed that the location of the garage is not as suitable as they thought. Moreover, the condition of the garage and the tools started to get worse with the time;
“Our first idea was to keep the tools where they were originally in Glenn's garage. And the reason we wanted to keep them there is because the garage is in a section of the city that is not close to the down town, so our target group were people with less resources or a car for example. And so, our idea was to make it a very local tool library and that people who live around it, could get there walking” (Andrea).
However, after a while they noticed that even local people would need a car for these huge tools and that it would not matter in what part of the city the tools would be stored after all.
Regarding the condition of the garage Andrea states the following: “We also ended up having problems with the space just because the garage is just like this little shed and it is falling apart. So, one day we got there and the door had fallen and the garage was open. And so, it just started being like a problematic space. That is why we had to move out” (Andrea).
Also, as Ryan and Andrea both explain, they had no idea what the tools where and how they could be used or replaced. This was something that was not anticipated at all:
“We see these gigantic machines and like I have never seen in my life, now I know them by name, but I really don't remember how to use them. They are heavy, like there was this gigantic tank, like to me it just looked like a tank of gas, it is higher than I am and it had this gigantic motor on top of it. We had started moving them little by little. And so it was a process of like six or eight months of just like taking all the tools.” (Andrea).
According to Andrea they (the ShareBloomingotn community) are always learning from this project. Mainly because the tools are so new to everyone.
“Every day I learn something new about a tool that we have. It is always fun to see people who are really familiar with tools come over to volunteer. They are always amazed with the amount and type of tools that the library has. Also, people who have worked with metal tools all their lives, invariably find a tool at the library that they have never seen in their life. It is a fun game to play: ‘name this tool’”. (Andrea)
A huge learning point has been (and still is) around researching different tool library models that will allow the tool library to be financially viable, and at the same time accessible to anyone in the community. ShareBloomington is learning how to get external support such as grants, donations, regular volunteers, etc. Another learning point according to Andrea is getting this project off the ground; “It takes much more commitment than other projects we have been involved with. For example, if we state that the library holds open hours on Wednesday and Sundays, it is not acceptable for volunteers not to show up, given that the community is relying on being able to either check out a tool or return a tool.”
Another learning point is the recognition that a good inventory system is essential to keep track of the tools. “We knew from the beginning that we would need to create an inventory, but I think we never really thought carefully what that meant. It turns out that creating the inventory is trivial, given that we have thousands of tools”.
Till so far, Andrea and Ryan have tried to take pictures of the tools with a spread-sheet. However, they did not have time to keep track of all the tools because of lack if time; “We have tried taking pictures of most of the tools, but then we need to create a spreadsheet with names, descriptions and photo of each tool, and that is a lot of work!” (Andrea).
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