By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Everyone knows you can take out books from a library, and maybe even a movie or two.

But at the Westport Library, patrons have access to many more “things” on loan — like a kayak to float on the beautiful Saugatuck River, or a leaf blower to clean up your yard.

Planning a holiday party this year? 

Check out the library for free or inexpensive items you can get on loan to throw the best party yet. 

Set the festive mood with a bubble machine, or a button maker to craft buttons that say, “Happy Holidays” (or anything else). 

Party vibes are in the mix with music equipment, such as speakers or a DJ kit, or make your own music with ukuleles, a banjo or an electronic drum set – all on loan from the library.

And to make a holiday party memorable, add accents like a cornhole set, a golf range finder, board games, puzzles and more. 

And to record the festivities, borrow one of the cameras available.

While adults are partying, if extra help with child care is needed, the library even has a Pack ’n’ Play portable play yard/crib that can be borrowed for little partygoers and for grandchildren visiting for the holidays.

Westport’s “Library of Things,” as librarians call it, “is definitely robust,” according to E.J. Crawford, director of marketing and communications for the library. “It has more things than most libraries.” 

Crawford said, for example, he has never heard of a library that has a kayak available for loan. 

The Westport Library is always looking for new and different items to loan, according to Kathleen Malloy, manager of patron experience at the library, and the librarian in charge of the Library of Things. 

The library has built the collection based on patron requests, and by using circulation figures to see what is most popular.

“Patrons say, ‘This is what I want,’ and we buy it,” Malloy said.

Some of the most popular items are from the “try it before you buy it,” school of thought she said, such as a sewing machine, or what she called “a gateway musical instrument,” such as a ukulele or a drum set.

Throughout the COVID pandemic the library found that people were interested in borrowing more equipment for working at home, such as a Zoom meeting audio recording device, or health-related items including a thermometer, an air-quality monitor and for those long, isolating days of quarantine, a therapy light. 

A movie projector and screen to watch films without leaving home also proved to be a popular lockdown loan.

“We’re meeting people where they are,” Crawford said.

People who want to borrow items from the Library of Things do not have to be Westport residents, but they must have a current library card from a Connecticut library. They also have to sign a liability waiver, and agree to pay a replacement fee if a borrowed item is damaged, destroyed or not returned.

The collection, formally initiated in 2018 when the library reopened after its transformation project, routinely considers new items for loan.

When the library gets requests to add new items to the collection, a staff committee researches the item requested, if necessary, and completes a cost-benefit analysis before purchasing it, Crawford said. The library includes funds in its annual budget to buy additional items for the Library of Things, Malloy added..

“We want people to come and use these things. That’s why they’re here,” he said.

For more information about the Westport Library’s “Library of Things,” click here as well as for the “Seed Library.”

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and currently teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.