Gone are the days of public library's being known for just lending books; today the library fills gaps by offering resources you may not have even considered.

Continuing to build on their lending library the Cochrane Public Library is moving into home renovations.

On April 21, the library launched its power and handheld tool library where residents can sign out tools for no cost and no storage requirements.

Karen Drok, Community Outreach and Program Librarian shares thanks to a couple of generous community sponsors such as Canadian Tire and Friends of the Library, the library is able to offer up ladders, power saws and many other tools so residents can get home projects done. 

Tools were checked out as soon as the program launched and Drok says since then, it has been going well. "In the past two weeks since it's been launched, we have had people come in and say 'you can borrow a belt sander?!' or different items like that; so we have a lot of interest from people who say I will come back to borrow it because of course, they need a large enough vehicle."

Lending out tools began last summer when gardening tools were able to be checked out. Now with the progression of power tools, requests are already coming in. "We have about 40 items right now and we'll be purchasing other tools as well. A skill saw has been mentioned, magnet detector and we've even been asked if we'll get things like a lawn mower and leaf blower but we're taking input and we'll see what will be the most in-demand items and go from there."

The library will continue to add lending libraries, states Drok. " A library is a community place; we share resources and we're always looking for new things that we think the community might be interested in."

If you are interested in borrowing any tools, you need to be 18 years of age or over, have a Cochrane Public Library card and sign a liability form.

Library members can check out up to a maximum of three tools at a time for one week. A full list of power/ handheld tools the library loans out is available HERE.