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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Lifestyle -> 
Libraries of Things‘sharing economy’for the digital age
    2017-06-30  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

WHEN the first Toronto Tool Library was launched in 2013, the project was so well received by the local community that it quickly grew to four locations and over 25,000 loans with a near 100 percent return rate.

Last year, the Toronto Tool Library team launched the Sharing Depot, Canada’s first library of things where, for C$25-$100 (US$18.9-75.7) per year, members can borrow camping and sports equipment, house party supplies, board games and toys. The project highlights the growing library of things trend and serves as a model for other organizations looking to grow the sharing movement in their town.

A Library of Things program in Sacramento, California, the United States, loans out all kinds of stuff that people may want to use, once in a while, but not own. An initiative of the Sacramento Public Library, the program aims to broaden the scope of libraries in useful ways. Their collection includes a laminating machine, music instruments, digital cameras, sewing machines and other appliances and technologies. Some items are loaned out while others can be used on site, like a book-printing machine and a 3-D printing lab.

The program at the Denver Public Library offers a variety of equipment and experiences for their customers to check out — from GoPro cameras to museum passes.

This movement has freed people from the burden of ownership. It’s also important to have municipal support for sharing projects.

Lawrence Alvarez, co-founder of the Toronto Tool Library and Sharing Depot, said one of the primary motivations is the movement toward DIY maker culture. “People want to be empowered to do their own projects,” he said. “They want to take control of their lives in different ways, and these projects are an avenue to do that — to take that camping trip they weren’t able to, to fix that sink that would have cost them an arm and a leg to hire someone to do when they just needed one specialized tool, to play that board game that was always too expensive for them to get.”

In 2011, Alvarez, Ryan Dyment and some friends started the Institute for Resource Based Economy. They were a bunch of environmental activists who started this organization with the purpose of applying for grants for environmental projects.

Then they discovered the Berkeley Tool Library in 2012 and decided to open a similar “library” in Toronto.

“The beauty of these projects, if you will excuse the term, is they’re kind of like gateway drugs,” said Alvarez. “If you share all of these things that you don’t need to own, if you just have experiences over ownership, and access over ownership, then what does that mean for everything else? Do you need to make as much money?”

Alvarez is optimistic about the future of the library of things.

“I would love to see something called the Sharing Mall,” he said. “Imagine a giant department store except, instead of going in and having to purchase all of these things, you go in and can borrow everything.

“I imagine the Sharing Mall being a city, province or country-funded thing, or maybe a very basic membership of C$50-$100. That is the future, to take sharing things to such a level that it becomes like a giant department store where you can go take out everything that you want under one roof. Maybe we would have multiple of these just on the outskirts of the city.”

He also envisions libraries around the world starting to more aggressively adopt things into their inventories.

Sharing is the way of the future.

(SD-Agencies)

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