Cape Library's Library of Things offers more than books, music

The Cape Girardeau Public Library has many more materials to offer beyond books, DVDs and CDs. Cake pans, telescopes and power tools are just a few of the items that may be borrowed from its Library of Things .

Director Katie Earnhart said the library has had items these types of items for years, but has made an effort acquire more.

"I was like, 'Hey, we're starting to accumulate a lot of things and we have the money that we can use to enhance our collection,'" Earnhart said. "Let's go ahead and designate this as our Library of Things."

Earnhart said she had seen similar collections in other libraries and liked the idea enough to create a wish list. Funding was made available through business partnerships and Friends of the Library Foundation.

"I just went to that wish list and looked at the prices of things locally, things that I thought would be of use for our patrons here, and then just went out and started buying things," Earnhart said.

The Library of Things was unveiled June 15, 2021, during the Cape Girardeau Public Library's 100th anniversary open house.

The expanded collection offers a selection of board games as well as outdoor games such as cornhole, pickleball and disc golf.

There are also several STEAM sets available for checkout. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, the art and mathematics.

Magen Sayer, a library patron, home-schools her children and has taken advantage of the STEAM Kits.

"I have five kids, so, whenever we're learning about a specific thing, they typically have an entire bag that you can bring home with different materials that reinforce the learning with a specific activity," Sayer said. "Right now, we have a math and measurement activity kit where they learn to measure a bunch of different things, and it works."

Sayer said the STEAM kits being available at the library are a "phenomenal" resource, specifically in the home schooling spectrum, because they don't necessarily have the same kind of materials a classroom in a school has to provide.

"We can check it out for the short period that we might be using it instead of having to purchase all those materials for ourselves, so, it's been invaluable for us," Sayer said.

Earnhart said the kits were able to be purchased from a library vendor called Penworthy out of Milwaukee thanks to a $4,000 grant from Missouri State Library.

Patrons wanting to check out Library of Things materials are required to sign a waiver and a use agreement.

"Power tools can be dangerous, but so could our knitting needles or our ice cream maker, depending on the person's level of common sense," Earnhart said. "So everybody needs to sign a waiver. If a patron gets hurt using the material, it's on them."

Earnhart said the use agreement details more specifically about each item, checkout periods and what happens if materials are damaged or not returned. She said they make judgments on a case-by-case basis.

"Just like a normal book that gets checked out, we're going to expect normal wear and tear to happen with an item," Earnhart said. "But it if something is completely beyond repair from damage that did not occur from normal use of the item, then we would obviously charge a replacement cost."

For more information on what materials are available in the Library of Things, go to www.capelibrary.org.

Earnhart said she'd love to see a cake made in one of the library's cake pans.

"We always have patrons bringing us goodies, but whether or not they've come from using library items, I don't know," Earnhart said.