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Renting a sewing machine from the library

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Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#141

Post by blendergeek »

II2II wrote: post #140
bombcar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auto part stores often will lend both weird and specialized tools, and relatively basic ones, too. Usually the way it works is you "buy" the tool and then "return" it.

While I understand some people think this is clever, all it does is increase costs for businesses which ends up increasing costs for honest consumers. Worse yet: it tends to increase the cost for local businesses, or at least businesses employing local people, so it's giving the finger to your neighbours rather than to the man.

Many autoparts store have a formal tool lending program that is structured as buy/return. I know it sounds like @bombcar is suggesting some “lifehack” that is closer to stealing. But, no, this is an actual service provided by actual auto parts stores.

https://www.autozone.com/lp/loan-a-tool

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#142

Post by II2II »

arghnoname wrote: post #114
TurdF3rguson wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will encounter homeless people in libraries, because it's one of the few public spaces that won't kick them out. Your reaction to that shouldn't be to hate and avoid libraries though. It should be to appreciate them more.

I don't go to libraries very often anymore because so often they're effectively homeless shelters. Should I not mind this? I don't know, 'should' is doing a lot here, but the truth is I used to love going to libraries, browsing books, and soak up the general scholastic atmosphere. Homeless shelter just isn't that much fun for me. If I want to be virtuous and go to a soup kitchen or otherwise try to interact with and…

> I don't go to libraries very often anymore because so often they're effectively homeless shelters.

If someone doesn't go to the library because of homeless people, the problem is with the person who doesn't go to the library.

If someone doesn't go to the library because they are being harassed, the problem is with the library. Let the library know about specific incidents so they can handle it.

I'm not saying the situation is ideal. Yet plenty of homeless people go to the library to access the services they offer, or simply to have a safe place to read a book (even if the book part is incidental). If people sleeping in the library is disturbing, well, let's just say that library security would be kicking out a lot of university students in my area.

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#143

Post by krisoft »

delichon wrote: post #3

I'd argue that sewing machines are among the most complex, high skill items found in a typical home, above the laptop and car. I find it very hard to keep mine operational. I struggle with it a lot more than I sew with it. They require fine motor skills and scads of parts and supplies. If you plan to rent them, plan for a repair staff or frequent replacements. Compared to a book, a sewing machine is a space ship, and…

Have you considered that maybe your sewing machine is faulty in some way? Either the model or the particular instance of it.

I’m also a complete sewing machine noob. We have a sewing machine at our hackspace, someone gave me a minute long tutorial and I had zero trouble with it afterwards. I think the whole “tutorial” was just: follow the arrows when threading it, don’t push down the pedal when your finger is under the needle. And it just worked as it should.

Maybe i just got lucky! But my experience was so different from yours that it made me think that maybe your sewing machine is either bad quality or has some hidden defect.

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#144

Post by cge »

whycombinetor wrote: post #31

Denver has this... nominally. 3 machines (2 in circulation, one is a "Display"). 4 week checkout period. 103 current holds. 103*4/2/12 ≈ 17 year wait time.

These sorts of services do seem very dependent on the details of how they are organized.

I’ve had experience with two university libraries with 3d printers. They both advertise them similarly, and they were nominally similar services, ostensibly letting students and staff both 3d print and learn about 3d printing.

At one, the arrangement was that they’d show you around the machines, give you a link to a list of notes and rules, and then you could come in and use the printers. If you wanted to do something unusual or use an exorbitant amount of filament, they asked that you talk to them first. That service is what initially introduced me to 3d printing.

At the other, the library staff decided they’d rather handle everything themselves. You’d submit an stl, then they’d print it at some point, potentially weeks later. Random color pla only, no slicing and providing gcode or even requests for settings. In practice staff decided they would only accept links to popular stls online; submitting your own stl would be rejected. They printed at such bad settings that everything would come out horribly. The service was worse than useless, taught nothing, and may well have turned many students off 3d printing entirely, if they thought the results were indicative of what 3d printing could do. We essentially have to warn students that the service is not practically usable.

But both, of course, say they have 3d printers.

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#145

Post by jurgenburgen »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #11

My local library which is part of the Washington county Library system (next to Portland). It's where Hillsboro is, which is where Intel's manufacturing is, also called Silicon Forest, has a Library Of Things! I've checked out a KitchenAid stand mixer, synthesizer, guitar, stud finder, drum machine, ukulele, air quality detector, and many more things. They also have a sewing machine and a. Vitamix. It's amazing! I lo…

The local library system has in addition to niche services like 3d printers and circuit card printers a humongous board game collection. You can reserve a board game online, it eventually appears at your local branch of the library and then you check it out for 2 weeks.

Really great way to test before you buy.

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#146

Post by yw3410 »

stevekemp wrote: post #116
deanc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m almost 40 and educated in the UK. I don’t think sewing has been taught in UK schools for quite many generations now - although no idea what the state of affairs is today.

It might be you need to make a choice to choose it; I know that when I was at school in the UK I got to choose between "CDT" (craft, design, and technology) or home economics, which was sewing, cooking, & etc. I picked woodwork, as 95% of the boys did, and about 80% of the girls picked the home-lessons instead. I do recall doing some sewing lessons outwith the home-ec classes, but it was very irregular. I know I skip…

Interesting, it was indeed design and technology; we weren't given a choice - we did both for a a couple of lessons each (cooking, sewing, woodwork, electronics, metalwork and graphic design).

I guess it must have been dependent on the school then?

It was useful - I'm quite sure I wouldn't have gotten any exposure to those subjects without it.

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#147

Post by petcat »

II2II wrote: post #142
arghnoname wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't go to libraries very often anymore because so often they're effectively homeless shelters. Should I not mind this? I don't know, 'should' is doing a lot here, but the truth is I used to love going to libraries, browsing books, and soak up the general scholastic atmosphere. Homeless shelter just isn't that much fun for me. If I want to be virtuous and go to a soup kitchen or otherwise try to interact with and…

> I don't go to libraries very often anymore because so often they're effectively homeless shelters. If someone doesn't go to the library because of homeless people, the problem is with the person who doesn't go to the library. If someone doesn't go to the library because they are being harassed, the problem is with the library. Let the library know about specific incidents so they can handle it. I'm not saying the s…

> Let the library know about specific incidents so they can handle it.

Library staff is not equipped to kick homeless people out for fear that it will cause a scene and possibly escalate to an aggressive situation. They will just call the police. So then the police will come and remove the person, but they will come back the next week, or maybe the next day. So then what happens? Call the police again? This time maybe they get charged with trespassing and put in jail? This goes on and on. The library is supposed to be a safe place but that also means that it is somewhat of a helpless place for staff and quiet citizens. And over time it slowly becomes more and more uncomfortable to the point that regular people just stop going.

It's nobody's "fault". It's just a tragedy of the circumstances.

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#148

Post by asdfologist »

wafflemaker wrote: post #111
whycombinetor wrote: post #31

Denver has this... nominally. 3 machines (2 in circulation, one is a "Display"). 4 week checkout period. 103 current holds. 103*4/2/12 ≈ 17 year wait time.

In the equation there seems to be a typo; 103 - number of ppl in queue, 4 - up to X weeks per person, 2 - number of machines 12 - ?? Maybe you initially wanted to use full months for how long a person can hold an item, but then switched to weeks, and accidently still used number of months to get the number of years? Anyway, for an imprecise number, you can do with months - 104*1/2/12 ~4.3y. For more precise result, u…

Why was this downvoted? The math checks out. Multiplying by 4 and then dividing by 12 is wrong.

Easy way to verify this: assume only 1 person in the queue and only 1 machine. Then the original calculation yields 4/12 of a year, even though the actual wait time is (about) 1/12 of a year.

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#149

Post by bregma »

delichon wrote: post #3

I'd argue that sewing machines are among the most complex, high skill items found in a typical home, above the laptop and car. I find it very hard to keep mine operational. I struggle with it a lot more than I sew with it. They require fine motor skills and scads of parts and supplies. If you plan to rent them, plan for a repair staff or frequent replacements. Compared to a book, a sewing machine is a space ship, and…

It depends.

We have a few sewing machines that are finicky. Tension goes off rapidly, binds a lot, lint buildup constantly has to be cleaned, clunks mysteriously sometimes. We also have a Singer manufactured in 1899 that just does what it's supposed to reliably (and you can still get parts for it!). Now mind you, it doesn't do fancy stitches or buttonholing or anything but straight stitching and a basic zigzag and you do have to keep the treadle properly lubricated but it even works during a power failure.

Sewing machines, like stand mixers and vacuum cleaners, in the end are power tools as much as radial arm saws, hammer drills, and routers are. It's great to have all the fancy features, but sometimes lowest tech is the best.

Re: Renting a sewing machine from the library

#150

Post by petcat »

steinwinde wrote: post #136
akouri wrote: post #43

Libraries around me have just become a homeless shelter. Pretty sad because the buildings themselves are actually quite nice and I'd use them often if it weren't for the high likelihood of being harassed.

Please critisize the harassment, not libraries for providing shelter to homeless people. A well managed library has a degree of supervision that allows the visitor to do something about harassment. This level of control is also important for homeless people, who are subject to harassment more than most. A reasonably well run library is also no place to consume alcohol or drugs in plain sight. In these respects librar…

> A well managed library has a degree of supervision that allows the visitor to do something about harassment.

Library staff in my city are instructed not to do anything themselves about homeless. If there's a problem then they just call the police, who are equipped to handle it. Same as the city bus drivers are not going to enforce paying fares or making sure no riders are causing problems. They just pull over and call the police.

Their is no polite "middle ground" where a librarian can just confidently ask a disruptive homeless person to vacate the library. 9 times out of 10 that confrontation will escalate into a full blown incident. That's why the rule is always just to call the police.

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