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Being There - No Whispering Necessary

Check-out Time at the Tool Lending Library

by Matt Dibble



There are not many libraries in the world where you can check-out A Catcher in the Rye and a sickle to go with it, or The Turn of the Screw and a screw gun to make the job easier. The Temescal Branch of the Oakland Public Library is one such place. Since debuting in 2000, the Tool Lending Library has been a huge hit, with more than 3,000 check-outs per month. Squeezed into several small rooms in the basement of the Temescal Branch’s 1918 Tudor-style building, are more than 3,000 tools, including everything from sump pumps to Sawzalls, soldering guns to stud finders. Come in with a library card, and you can roll out with a rototiller.

Today, as on most Fridays, the line of eager DIY types stretches out the door and down the sidewalk. Friday is the busiest day of the week by far, as weekend warriors gear up to tackle the yard or that nagging home improvement project. A mom pushing a stroller stops by to pick up an axe, a man named Ernest is here to renew a tile cutter for a few more days and nearly everyone else in line wants a Weed Eater. Cheers greet a woman as she arrives to return one. Weed Eaters are one of the most popular items at the library, along with electric drain snakes.

Presiding over this madness with infinite calm is Ty Yurgelevic, the only full-time employee, and Trevor Jackson, who works part time when he’s not doing construction. More than a few patrons have compared Ty to TV’s favorite handyman Bob Vila, who also favors lumberjack shirts and facial hair. Ty doesn’t see the resemblance, but the comparison suggests a quality that both share: the ability to empower and reassure novices as they plunge into doit- yourself projects. “For our first three years, women patrons out numbered men,” says Ty, who thinks women tend to be quicker to discover available resources. Ty greets everyone passing through the door as if they were an old friend stopping by the clubhouse. “Look who’s here! Earl, how’d that pole-trimmer work out for you?”

Sheila Jackson is here to check out a “Hula Hoe,” a U-shaped tool used to get at the roots of weeds. “I used to think the Hula Hoe wasn’t worth two cents. Then I learned it’s all in the motion,” she says while demonstrating a faux-Hawaiian weeding dance. Sheila retired four years ago after a long career at office jobs. “I am enjoying myself to no end,” says Sheila, who feels like she was born to build. “I was my father’s first son! When other ladies were buying dresses and stuff, I would be buying an electric hedge trimmer.” Her most ambitious project is a shed that she built from the foundation up. The guys at the library turned her on to a chop saw for cutting the iron Rebar used in concrete foundations. “Before that I was using bolt cutters and jumping on them to cut,” she laughs. “I’ve been divorced for 30 years. I tell my ex-husband, ‘If I’d stayed married to you, I wouldn’t have learned how to do anything.’ He’ll call me now because he doesn’t know how to do something.” Empowerment has its drawbacks though. “It makes it very difficult to find a man, because the men get intimidated,” she sighs. “I can also fish better than they can.”

Perhaps it was because of Temescal’s proximity to Berkeley—where tool lending has been available since 1979—that the revolutionary idea of handing out tools for free took root. Rebuilding efforts after the 1991 Oakland Hills fire prompted branch librarian Martha Bergman to offer more books on construction, and tool lending followed in 2000.

According to Ty, the Tool Library serves three main groups of constituents: homeowners with a pricey fixer-upper and no money left for tools, renters with a project and no room to store tools and a small group who borrow tools to make a living doing yard and handyman work. “We serve a lot of new immigrants. We had one guy come in two or three times a week to borrow a Dremel. He was carving these beautiful busts of African warriors from stone. We have a lot of people who have never set foot in a book library. I sometimes send them upstairs for a how-to book or something and then they keep going back.”

With usage as high as it is, there have been surprisingly few incidents of loss or breakage. “Sometimes people try to return the tools to other branches or even the Berkeley library,” says Ty with a roll of the eyes. In a back room there is a workbench where Gerald Rise, a volunteer for three years, tends to ailing equipment. Surveying his patients with bemusement, he says, “Some of these tools are waiting for parts. Others are waiting for the Messiah.” A retired electrical engineer, he is more than qualified to deal with one of the biggest abuses: grounding prongs that have been removed from the plugs of power tools.

Back at the check-out desk: Alia needs a tool to cut down a bush, Erica is considering the best way to build a box around her hot water heater and Kofi is still waiting for an elusive Weed Eater. By 4 p.m. there has not been a break in the action long enough for Ty or Trevor to eat lunch, but a small tool-clad army is fanning out into the city ready to take matters into their own hands.

E-mail Matt Dibble at beingthere@oaklandmagazine.com.