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I’m trying to privately build a public library in a rural Idaho community. Borrowing sewing machines has been a popular request, as soon as we have space for them. It’s exciting to see that it’s a worldwide desire and not just a rural trend. Very cool to read about how Finland is doubling down on investing in libraries and skill building tools like sewing machines!

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How are you going about this? Asking because I thought about doing something similar (e.g., Makerspaces, hackerspaces, Fab Labs).

Luckily a few others here in Idaho have done it by way of a Friends of the Library official non-profit 501(c)(3), so I have a model to follow that works in our region and for our rural conservative conditions. The standard non-profit benefits apply: we apply for a lot of grants, we set up endowments, accept land or stock as gifts, take on capital projects like building a library. The public library can then lease from us (probably for $0) or if we put a large enough endowment fund together we would very much consider taking it all private vs just a purpose built building for the library.

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