An ode to the public library

Part 7: Ten things to take into 2025

Welcome to this 10-part series on 10 things to take into 2025.

Here are the previous parts:
Part 1: Digital tools over digital drugs (Alt: Go at human pace)
Part 2: Go deeper
Part 3: Build your bucket-line community (Alt: Mutual aid for life.)
Part 4: Slow travel
Part 5: Dance on the abundant edge (Alt: Be the weird one)
Part 6: Get to work in the non-monetary economy

What are you taking into 2025? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to know.

Thing #7: An ode to the public library

A love of the rare and beautiful offering that public libraries are, is something I’m taking into 2025.

I’ve just started working at my local library, and I can tell you it’s not all books and shoosh. It’s a bonanza of free services, education and access to third spaces where the community reaps incredible benefits.

The library can feel a little underutilised, so I’m here to spruik its (free) wares.

But why switch from small biz ownership to working at the library?

After a mammoth 12 years running two businesses in parallel (our farm micro-biz and my freelance photography gig) I became very ready for a change. I wanted to work in my community where I could cycle-commute, and I wanted to work with a team and do something meaningful. Working at Libraries Tasmania became my unicorn job.

Libraries Tasmania came into my consciousness a couple of years ago when I was commissioned to capture a fresh bunch of images that encapsulate what happens there over a 2-day photoshoot.

I thought I knew about libraries, but covering a shot-list as long as my arm of all the incredible services and programs that the libraries offer blew my mind. I filed that experience away in my ‘I must have something to do with this in the future’ file.

What’s so good about public libraries anyway?

From literacy programs, to free tech support, from author talks to programs like crafternoons for both kids and adults, the library contains multitudes.

You can co-work there (with your coffee and lunch), use a computer and the internet for free, or hire a meeting room from just $6 an hour. The library is an incredible free third space, that also has a communal puzzle on the go at all times.

If you don’t want to support Amazon anymore, there’s the Libby App for ebooks, and audio books, and you can read the newspaper for free via the Libraries Tas App. You can also learn a language on Mango.

Of course you can borrow books, DVDs, CDs, console games, magazines, and audiobooks. Start a wishlist and put items on hold that’ll be delivered from all over the state. And there’s a huge family history archive to dive into.

That’s just the tip of the library-shaped iceberg. I’m sure your local public library does similarly awesome things too.

A recommendation for you.

If you have a robust imagination, you might like this video. It’s about scaling up the idea of a library so in the future we might have a ‘library economy’. Near the end there’s a role play about how it could all work. It’s pretty great actually.

(Side note: The above recco is a bit socialist/communism-y, so if you’re allergic to the thought of that and think they are coming to take your toothbrush, you might be curious about this podcast: Marxism for the Masses by Upstream Podcast. When experts use the term ‘late-stage capitalism’ one wonders what’s to come next. Before things really start to crumble, I’m getting into exploring the alternatives and investigating long-held myths - which could be a whole extra edition of this newsletter series. Anyway, apols, that’s quite a tangent.)

Things are meant to be used, not hoarded.

Anyone who makes anything would say they want to see it being used and loved, not stored away, collecting dust.

That’s not to say we don’t own stacks of books - we definitely do. We try to enforce a policy of only keeping books that are useful, the ones we go back to over and over for information. Or books we loved and would lend out to friends—which we do all the time, and have lost track of so many over the years. I hope they are out in the world living their best lives.

I think public libraries are just one (incredible) community resource that keeps things circulating and being well used, and not hoarded. Toy libraries and tool libraries too, if you are lucky enough to be near one of those awesome initiatives.

We hoard because we are made to feel terrified of scarcity. So we dig our heels in and strive for independence. But what I’m learning from my ongoing community building endeavors is that interdependence is a much more rich and fun way to consider thing-ownership.

One of the core values of our gardening community group is sharing and collaboration. Between us, we own an abundance of tools and resources that are better shared around the group, rather than all of us owning, storing and maintaining the same things.

We also have a plan to buy a secondhand mulcher as a group. Which we’re all super excited about. By pooling our money we can buy a better quality one, and rotate it around each person’s garden. Easy.

Asking to borrow something makes us feel vulnerable. But maybe it’s time to get over that, because it not only saves money, probably time, and earthly resources, it might also spark a community connection and a good conversation.

Are you a library fan? I feel like I might be preaching to the choir here, but I think it’s always worth giving a big cheer to this state-funded system of borrowing stuff and free services, which seems like a rare and beautiful thing in our current consumerist culture. What do you think?

Thanks so much for reading this installment of Ten things to take into 2025.

Keep an eye out for the rest of this series coming to your inbox weekly.

This series is a homage to Catie Payne’s awesome Reskillience podcast's '10 Things’ series, in which her guests gather a list of 10 things to inspire a more resilient, skillful future.

Over 10 weeks, I’m jotting down 10 things (habits, ideas, mindset shifts, and gentle reminders) I’m taking into 2025, which is allowing me to sprinkle in all the juicy changes happening for me this year too.