I've been thinking about the advantages of tool libraries vs. maker spaces and why I think the latter would be more beneficial for creating access to tools for life and hobbies.
While I like the concept of tool libraries, I think providing larger sets of work spaces: art studios, carpentry spaces, bike shops, kitchens, office spaces, sewing rooms, etc. makes a lot more sense. For most of these activities, you need access to a variety of tools at once, and not everyone has space at home to work on refinishing furniture or spinning pottery. To me, the dream is having a series of community centers in every neighborhood that has various labs for community members to access to partake in hobbies, repair their stuff, etc. I do think integrating tool libraries into these spaces would be useful, for instance, the carpentry studio could have a wall of tools for you to check out if you need to accomplish something at home.
There are of course applications where tool libraries make more sense to me. Neighborhood garden tool sheds for example. I just think focusing on developing maker spaces would be a more effective way of providing these types of resources to communities.
Thoughts?
Tool libraries tend to be free or cheap. The makerspace near me runs north of $150/month for limitted access at, frankly, inconveniet hours.
I get its geared towards people who don't have the budgets or room, but having such(mostly the room, but for the price, I'm builing up a decent tool-set instead of paying fees), I would rather work around my neighbors' sleeping schedules and the city noise ordnance than drive downtown to use someone else's stuff, strictly during daylight hours.