I love our local library. We bring our kids, they feel like it’s Supermarket Sweep but for books, and it saves us money and clutter around the house.

The other day, I went in and saw a whole display for art you could borrow. These were framed prints you could borrow for six weeks at a time with a limit of two per customer. (the overdue fines were steep though, $2 per day whereas they suspended overdue fines for books after Covid)

That sent me down a rabbit hole that showed me all the amazing things you could borrow from the library.

Ebooks & Audiobooks in Libby

If you love your library too, you’re probably familiar with Libby. Libby is an app that lets you borrow ebooks and audiobooks directly to your phone, tablet, or Kindle. You set up your account, add your libraries, and are able to put holds and borrow from each one.

You can expand your available catalog by adding additional libraries because each one has a separate catalog. Reciprocard lists reciprocal borrowing programs so you can find and join other libraries that partner with yours. They also list library programs that allow non-residents to join, typically for a fee.

Here’s my short Instagram video explaining how Reciprocard works:

Digital Subscriptions

One of my favorite hidden benefits is free access to premium research databases and online subscriptions.

Many libraries now offer subscriptions to premium research like Consumer Reports, Morningstar, and others. This is in addition to online subscriptions to newspapers and other sites like the New York Times.

Ours collects them under Digital Library and the terms for each subscription is different. For the New York Times, there is a daily code you can redeem onto your own account to get 24 hour access to news. I save it as a bookmark and load it whenever I see a NYT article I want to read.

Movies & TV Shows

Many libraries provide access to two streaming services for free – Kanopy and hoopla. They’re separate services with different catalogs but many libraries offer you access to one or both for free.

Kanopy is primarily streaming video with thousands of movies, many classics, as well as television series and documentaries. Hoopla has video but also includes audiobooks, comics, magazines, and music.

Free Museum Passes

Many libraries have museum and park passes that you can “borrow” to help save on entry and or even parking. For example, the Boston Public Library offers a DCR ParksPass. It’s a physical pass that gives you free parking at 50 facilities in the Massachusetts State Parks System.

The New York City Public Library offers a Culture Pass if you have a library card from the Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, or New York Public Library. It allows you free access to 100+ cultural institutions across NYC, including Carnegie Hall, the Intrepid Museum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Do you need a tool to finish a home improvement job?

What about a cake pan?

How about binoculars or a camping lantern?

Don’t buy it when you can borrow it.

Our library calls it the DIY Collection and it lists pretty much every common tool you can imagine. You can get an orbital sander, 100′ tape measure, binoculars, trekking poles, baguette pan, and so much more.

Here’s just a list of things you could find at a library:

• Board games
• Puzzles
• Video games
• Baking pans
• Telescopes
• Fishing poles
• Musical instruments
• Sewing machines
• Power tools
• Lawn equipment
• Cake decorating kits
• Hotspots
• Chromebooks
• Calculators

Before you buy something you may only use once and have to store forever, borrow it and let the library store it for you!

Makerspaces

3D printers are all the rage these days but buying one and setting it up can be expensive and a pain. If you want to avoid the expense, see if your library has a makerspace that lets you use them for free!

Ours has a 3D printer, recording booth, laser cutter engraver, and a cricut maker. The 3D printer is free to use but you pay $0.25 per gram of filament, which is a premium to what you’d pay for filament if you bought it separately. But you don’t have to buy the printer, maintain it, and pay for the electricity to use it.

Before you buy something you may only use once and then have to store forever, check the library first.

Best case, you save money.

Worst case, you discover your library lends out something delightfully weird.

What fun things can you borrow from your library?