Photo: Betty Crocker
Full-service libraries are starting to lend out cooking utensils as well as cookbooks.
You’ve heard of the Internet of Things, right? Using the internet to turn on the heat in your house before you arrive home from a trip, for example, or checking inside your fridge while you’re at the supermarket to see if you need milk.
Well, I just learned about something called the Library of Things. This expansion of the role of libraries is a recognition that you may not want to buy all the paraphernalia for making a gingerbread house, say, but would love to try making one if you could just borrow the equipment.
Deanna Fox writes at the Times Union, “When you go to visit Guilderland Public Library on Western Avenue [near Albany, New York], be sure to bring your appetite. Besides the expansive array of cookbooks in the stacks and shelves to peruse and whet the palate, the library now offers bakeware and food-related programming to make those glossy images in cookbooks a reality.
“Maria Buhl, department head for programs and services at the library, said its 2,200 cookbooks serve as the foundation for a new cake pan and cookie cutter loan program that provides patrons with a chance to use a piece of kitchen equipment that they typically could only access through purchasing it.
” ‘We choose items that are not things people want in their homes,’ said Buhl, who added that people enjoy kitchen gadgetry and trying new recipes, but purchasing the equipment needed to make the recipes is space- and money-intensive and having a lending library of novelty pans, Bundt pans, springform pans and various cookie cutters gives utility to the cookbooks the library offers.
“There are currently a few dozen cake pans and cookie cutter sets to choose from at the library, and Buhl said there are plans to add 15 to 20 more items. Some of the sets and pans are included in the ‘birthday in a backpack’ program that offers patrons a backpack filled with books, games, decorations and bakeware that all follow a theme (‘Dora the Explorer’ or dinosaurs, for example) to create a celebration with otherwise onetime use items.
“Tim Wiles, the library’s director, said the cake pan program is part of the facility’s ‘library of things,’ a growing trend among public libraries.
” ‘There is a general thought in society that because everything is on the internet, there is no need for libraries in general,’ he said, but the success of the lending of material items like bakeware or other items, like 6-foot folding tables that are often the top checked-out items in the ‘library of things,’ secures the purpose of a library in the age of digital information and media. …
” ‘Take a historical look at this. Libraries started in the mid-19th century because books were rare and expensive. It is all part of the sharing economy,’ said Wiles.
“Bakeware is no good without a recipe, however, and Guilderland Public Library’s cookbook collection is the highest circulating nonfiction collection in the library, said Buhl. …
“A new cookbook club at the library highlights one or two cookbooks per month that patrons can choose a recipe from, make a photocopy of, and take home to try. Patrons are invited to gather one night per month to share the dishes they make from the books and discuss them.
“September was the first month of the program and the chosen book was ‘Great British Bake Off: Big Book of Baking,’ by Linda Collister. … Because the measurements in the book were offered in metric form, conversion charts were provided for patrons. ‘It became like a STEAM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math] program,’ said Buhl. ‘It was an opportunity for people to step outside of their comfort zone.’ ”
Now, that’s another good idea — especially in Suzanne’s kitchen, where the great recipes Erik remembers from growing up in Sweden are all in metric.
More information is available at the Times Union, here, or at guilderlandlibrary.org.
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