TRAVERSE CITY — Does a library need to have books to be a library?
Although historically a simple answer, libraries in the Traverse City region are offering an alternative.
The Norte Clubhouse is a nonprofit organization that operates a bike library, where kids can borrow and ride bikes.
Tyler Wituszynski is the bike librarian. He said that the library has more than 900 bikes checked out to the community.
“Local kids can come and borrow a bike, and they get to use that bike, essentially, until they outgrow it,” he said.
Wituszynski maintains the bikes in the library, helps with the camps that the library runs and teaches mechanic classes.
Besides him, the library is mainly volunteer-dependent. The library is also completely donation-based.
Bikes might be checked out for multiple years. To keep track of the bikes, Norte uses an online program called Librarika, which is usually used for book libraries.
“We essentially get the guardian’s info in there and then check out the bikes to them, and then we check in every four months,” Wituszynski said. “They renew the bike to make sure that it still fits, it’s still working, and it’s being used.”
The moment Wituszynski feels the most gratified at work is when the kids come back to get on more difficult bikes.
“A lot of times the kids will want to come back and show us how they can ride this type of thing,” he said.
Wituszynski also said that the bike library and book library have parallels despite the major differences.
“If a library is to get people excited about books and reading, the bike library is to get people excited about bikes and about getting outside and being active,” he said.
The Traverse City District Area Library does have books. However, they also have libraries full of stuff.
Josh Denby oversees the library’s Sight and Sound Department, which includes the Library of Things.
Denby said that people can check out items two weeks at a time, but many are used only once or twice. One of the single-use items is a sound-level meter.
“I know that people who live around the airport have occasionally checked these out to see how much noise they’re creating,” he said. “People who live in apartments who are practicing with music want to make sure they’re not annoying their neighbors.”
The Library of Things began operating in 2019, and, like the bike library, it is heavily donation-based. Many of the things borrowed are used to experience older media.
“A lot of people’s computers don’t come with optical media readers anymore, and they might find old CDs or DVDs of like family photos or family videos, and they want to transfer them to another form of digital storage,” Denby said.
People can also borrow instruments to practice music. It can range from a ukulele to synthesizers.
“I love synthesizers, and we have a variety of them,” Denby said. “I have two favorites ... the Yamaha Reface DX and the Yamaha Reface CS. They’re basically modern models of older synthesizers in Yamaha’s catalog.”
Although the synthesizers are Denby’s favorite, the thing that he found the oddest was the flight computer.
“People use the flight computer because they need to use this to get their pilot’s license,” he said. “You can’t have a computer while you’re taking your test, so they need this separate small device.”
In addition to the Library of Things, the library offers kits to help with people with health issues.
Called a healthcare kit, the kits can help people with autism, arthritis, depression and dementia.
“So in those kits, there are books, DVDs, and sometimes even 3D objects that you can interact with,” {span}Director of Outreach and Adult Services Melissa McKenna {/span}said. “For example, for the arthritis, there are some hand-strengthening squishy balls in there that you can go ahead and try out.”
These kits are now also fully provided by the library, which was not the case before the pandemic.
“The health care kits were actually something that used to be offered in the community family library, medical library that was over in the Munson building in East Bay before the pandemic,” McKenna said. “That was a library resource that closed during the pandemic and never reopened.”
Consequently, with the effort, McKenna said the community has “really appreciated” the kits.
“It’s been positive, and we can tell that mostly by how many times they’re all checked out,” she said.
In addition to the Library of Things and the healthcare kits, the district library also hosts repair cafes twice a year to teach and help the local community repair all sorts of items.
For kids, the library also has STEM kits where kids can build things like racecourses or operate robots.
