The library that lends things

A library lends books. In about a hundred cities, libraries now lend other things too: drills, sewing machines, camping tents, musical instruments, even cake tins.

The idea is simple arithmetic. An electric drill is used, on average, for a few minutes in its whole life. A street of fifty families may own forty drills that are all idle at the same moment. One shared drill, borrowed when needed, does the same work for a fraction of the cost and material.

The things that work best in such a library have three features. They are expensive to buy, used rarely, and easy to check when they come back. A tent fits; a bicycle is harder, because it is used often and wears out quickly.

Schools are an obvious place for the same idea. Sports equipment, measuring instruments, costumes for a play and tools for a science club are all expensive, rarely used by any one class, and already stored in a building that is open every day. The barrier is never money. It is somebody to keep the list, somebody to say yes or no, and a simple rule about what happens when something breaks.

FitForm works on the same principle, although it lends nothing physical. One tablet in a hall serves a whole class, because any single student needs it for less than a minute. The expensive thing is shared; the cheap thing — the student's own body — is not.