Any Library Can Create a Library of Things

***BEFORE YOU REGISTER FOR THIS WEBINAR PLEASE REVIEW IMPORTANT REGISTRATION INFORMATION BELOW***

Lending unusual items expands the ways libraries can serve their communities. Discover how to set up a library of things from organizations with collections of varied sizes and scopes. Learn to build inclusive lending systems that delight patrons with tools for the home, education, science, and more, to reflect the diverse makeup of your communities. Support your community's needs, from disaster recovery to event hosting, by joining the sharing economy and lending resources beyond books.

Learning Outcomes

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Identify community needs and determine how creating and curating a library of things can address them;
• Know how to acquire, catalog, display, lend, use, maintain, promote, and curate a library of things; and
• Join a community of library of things librarians to share their lessons learned and collectively improve our offerings.

Who Should Attend

This webinar is intended for any library staff interested in libraries of things.

Panelists

Hazel Onsrud (she/they) is a public librarian at Curtis Memorial Library (Brunswick, ME), who works on community programming and collection development—including an extensive library of things focused on the Sustainable Development Goals. She serves on the international Library of Things Mutual Aid group, the advisory board of the Sustainable Libraries Initiative and the steering team of MECollab. She enjoys collaborating with good humans around the globe and was named a 2024 Library Journal Mover and Shaker and a 2025 New York Times Changemaker. Prior to her work as public librarian, Hazel co-founded the Maine Tool Library and spent a bunch of time learning from graceful teachers. In her free time, she likes to create things, eat molés, and design gardens.

 

Kelsey Andrus (she/her) is a spinstress, gardener, lachanophile, cook, perpetual knitter, and terrible dancer. She manages the system-wide Library of Things collections at Richland Library, including the Seed Libraries, and is project managing the expansion of the collection to all thirteen locations. She dreams of one day owing ample land and having enough time to raise her own food and enough sheep to keep her busy.

 

Lydia Sampson (she/her) is the assistant director and head of Technical Services at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. She holds an MLS from Simmons University, and a Master of Science in Management. During her eight-year tenure at Morrill Memorial Library, Lydia has spearheaded a significant expansion of the Library of Things collection. Her library experience includes sixteen years in an academic library prior to her current position. Outside of her professional life, Lydia is a foster cat mom, an avid adventure traveler, and a true crime enthusiast currently residing in Rhode Island.

 

For more than thirty years, Lisa Loranc (she/her) has been active in the library profession and is currently the director of the Brazoria County Library System in Texas. She is a leader in the community and is committed to making sure the library continues to provide both practical assistance for daily living and inspiration for building a better future.

 

Sara Wedell (she/her) has worked in small, medium, and large public libraries, with a focus on collection development, designing classification systems, and maintaining special collections—including the Ann Arbor (MI) District Library's (AADL) tools collection. At AADL, Sara has been part of teams that create puzzles for the Summer Game, organize and host Nerd Nite A2, and established and run Fifth Avenue Press, the AADL's locally-focused, publicly-owned publishing imprint.

 

Important Registration Information

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Accommodations

This live webinar will be captioned in English (United States). Zoom desktop client or mobile app is required to access captions.

Attendees using screen readers are advised to turn off speech prior to joining the Zoom event because PLA webinars make extensive use of chat functionality. Attendees who find chat distracting may wish to disable it in the Zoom event, as PLA moderators will verbally highlight important topics raised in chat and chat transcripts will be provided post-webinar.

If you have a physical or communication need that may affect your participation in this webinar, please contact us at plawebinars@ala.org or 800-545-2433 ext. 5PLA (5752) at least two weeks prior to the webinar. Without prior notification of need, we may not be able to provide appropriate accommodations for the live event.

Archived Recording

If you're unable to attend this live webinar, an archived recording will be available to all registrants typically within 1–3 business of the live event. Access to closed captions will be provided in the webinar recording.

Tech Requirements

This webinar will be presented using the Zoom platform. Please review Zoom technical requirements and support information, and test your connection.

Once you've joined the webinar, there are two ways to connect your audio: via computer (VoIP) or via telephone. No microphone is required. PLA works with its webinar platform provider to assure the highest quality audio is being delivered to attendees. However, variables over which PLA has no control—such as the speed of your Internet connection or traffic on your local network—can affect the end quality of the webinar audio delivered by your computer. Each webinar’s audio is also available by telephone via a toll number, so we recommend you have access to a long-distance enabled phone as a backup in case you experience audio issues with VoIP. If you do encounter any problems during the webinar, you will receive a link to its archived recording within a week of the live event and can review anything you missed.

Contact

This webinar is presented by the Public Library Association (PLA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA).

Questions about this webinar? Please contact us at plawebinars@ala.org or 800-545-2433 ext. 5PLA (5752).