On a Saturday morning at the Palms-Rancho Park branch library in Los Angeles, anyone with a Los Angeles Public Library card (like LeVar Burton, perhaps) can walk in with an everyday problem that needs fixing—a torn jacket, a bike that wobbles, a clasp-less necklace. Just a few hours later, you’ll leave happy as a clam. Everything’s fixed, and you didn’t have to spend a single cent.
This is the Repair & Fix-It Cafe, a free event held every few months sponsored by the Friends of the Palms-Rancho Park Library. Here, volunteers put their skills to good use patching up clothes, sharpening knives, servicing bikes, fixing small appliances, troubleshooting computers, and mending broken jewelry. The work is simple but meaningful.
That’s the beauty of public libraries: it was never only about books. Libraries across the country are getting creative, cracking open their catalogs, and asking, ‘Why not?’
We already covered all the useful, lesser-known services that most libraries offer (access to online learning platforms, free admission to nearby attractions). But Palms-Rancho isn’t the only library branch that’s, well, branching out. There’s a library in Alaska where you can rent out cake pans in the shape of Hello Kitty. In rural Oklahoma, the Okemah Public Library features a telehealth kiosk that helps remote residents meet virtually with out-of-town doctors.
We scoured the Web for the 15 strangest, most unique, and downright delightful free services offered by public libraries in America.
1. They’ll repair almost anything (Los Angeles, California)
Back to where we started: LAPL’s Fix-It Cafe sharpens knives, mends clothes, and tunes up bikes at no cost. It’s a part of a repair-café movement that’s quickly gone national. They’re free community events where neighbors help neighbors tune up the everyday objects that would otherwise be destined for the trash.
2. You can borrow a telescope (Harrison, Arkansas)
Beneath a dark sky in the Ozarks, the Boone County Library lends out telescopes. There are four Orion StarBlast scopes, donated and set up by the Arkansas Natural Sky Association with NASA-backed funding. If you’re 18 or up, you can take one home for two weeks and gaze up at the moon, the planets, and star clusters, and each telescope comes with a beginner’s guide to the night sky.
3. A tiny library gives away free prom dresses (Shawsville, Virginia)
In the small town of Shawsville, Virginia, the Meadowbrook Public Library keeps a rack of about 275 prom dresses. They’re petite to plus-size, in every style and color, and they’re free to local high schoolers. If you’re a student in the area, this works just like the books: drop in during library hours, browse, and pick a dress to go home with. There’s free jewelry, too. “We have people who donate these dresses, we have monetary donations, and it’s just a win-win for the community,” says library manager Cindy Minnick. “We love doing that.” The dresses are 100% donated, and come from neighbors who want to send it forward.
4. They’ll help you plan the end of your life (Seattle, Washington)
The Seattle Public Library’s Ducks in a Row workshop helps ease the stress and chaos surrounding end-of-life services. It walks participants through wills, trusts, powers of attorney, advance care directives, and funeral options. The program is led by an estate attorney and deathcare educators, and is offered in English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Cantonese.
5. You can borrow a synthesizer! (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania)
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh runs a Musical Instrument Lending Library stocked with synthesizers, beatmakers, sequencers, effects pedals, a digital theremin, and recording gear, which can be checked out for three weeks at a time. If you’re looking to soothe the part of your soul that regrets never picking up an instrument in your youth, you’ve come to the right place.
6. A teens-only video game room (Fayetteville, Arkansas)
The Fayetteville Public Library built a dedicated teens-only gaming room they’ll never want to leave. The consoles available include Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 5, which come loaded with dozens of games, from Kirby’s Dream Buffet to Overcooked! to Fifa ’23 to Fortnite (we could go on forever). There are also a bunch of board games available, and teens can reserve a spot with their friends at the library’s Teen Desk.
7. Keep the Lingít language alive (Haines, Alaska)
At the end of a long road in Southeast Alaska, the Haines Borough Public Library serves a town of about 2,500. In March 2026, it won the National Medal for Museum and Library Services, the nation’s highest library honor. The reason? Its decades-long partnership with the Chilkoot Indian Association. Together they built the Chilkoot–Chilkat Storyboard, an interactive map that teaches Lingít place names, language, and history. Touch a spot and elders tell you the story behind it.
8. Grab gear and head outside (Abbotsford, Wisconsin)
Abbotsford Public Library offers a backpack for every kind of adventurer. The five different Nature Backpacks prepare children for the great outdoors and can be checked out for two weeks. The “On The Nature Trail” pack includes a compass, nature bingo, a magnifying glass, and a Midwest guide to animal tracks. For critter-curious kids, the “Bug Hunt” backpack comes with a butterfly net, a bug scavenger hunt, a tool to view the little creatures, and a book about butterflies.
9. Bake a Hello Kitty cake (Topeka, Kansas)
The Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library’s Cake Pan Library lends specialty pans shaped like dinosaurs, guitars, teddy bears, butterflies, and yes, Hello Kitty, for two weeks. Perfect for the once-a-year occasion nobody wants to buy a single-use pan for.
10. Try a “sad” lamp (Mentor, Ohio)
Mentor Public Library lends light therapy lamps that deliver up to 10,000 lux to ease seasonal affective disorder (SAD). These can be game-changers in the winter months, and cost $40 to $70 in stores.
11. See a doctor from a private booth (Okemah, Oklahoma)
The Okemah Public Library in rural Okfuskee County houses a telehealth kiosk where residents meet virtually with out-of-town doctors. It’s equipped with a blood pressure machine, pulse oximeter, scale, and a high-tech stethoscope—plus locks and blurred glass for privacy. In a county where the nearest specialist might be hours away, a library just became a place you can get care.
12. Build a deck with borrowed tools (Ashtabula, Ohio)
The Ashtabula Public Library lends a portable workbench: a folding ToughBuilt model that sets up in seconds and holds up to 1,000 pounds. It’s just one of the many specialty items this library has to offer, including an LED inspection camera with an SD card to survey hard-to-reach places, a multipurpose variable speed rotary tools (including safety goggles and 34 accessories), and a voltage tester.
13. Keep an art form alive (Waianae, Hawai’i
In a wonderful act of preservation, the Wai’anae Public Library holds 580 traditional Hawaiian quilt patterns in binders, with a tracing table on hand so you can copy a design and take it home.
14. Stock a nursery without buying anything (Pinedale, Wyoming)
Babies outgrow their toys and gear in a matter of months, and the costs add up fast, so it’s a very big deal that the Sublette County Library lends out high chairs, baby-grasping toy kits, and music and noise-maker STEAM kits for the under-two crowd.
15. Launch your very own podcast (Dripping Springs, Texas)
If you’ve always dreamed of starting a talk show with your best friend, the Dripping Springs Community Library has you covered. Their loanable podcast kit makes it easy to record high-quality audio on-the-go, and includes a $500 backpack packed with a sound mixer, power adapters, cables, and two microphones.
Bonus: You can get married in a 1929 art gallery (Palos Verdes Estates, CA)
We’ve heard of bibliosmia before, but this library in Southern California takes book-loving to the next level: you can actually get married at the Malaga Cove Library in Palos Verdes Estates. Located near the coastline, it’s a lovely, romantic venue. The Mediterranean Revival-style building was designed by architect Myron Hunt in 1929, and wedding rentals include access to a large classical art gallery and its adjoining garden. A ceremony runs $1,350; a full day with reception is $3,600. Not free, but a fairytale venue at that price is its own kind of public good.
We love public libraries!
The American Library Association estimates about two-thirds of Americans have a library card. But do all of those people know the power that little rectangle of plastic really holds? That gap matters.
Look at what’s possible, thanks to the programs on this list:
- A rural patient who can see a doctor.
- A parent who can go home with a trunk-full of baby gear.
- A teenager with nowhere to go after school suddenly has a safe, secure room full of the latest games.
- Someone who needs a sad lamp but can’t justify the cost can bask in its healing glow.
These aren’t just clever perks. They’re the argument that some things should still be free, and that you can depend on your community to provide it.
So do what almost nobody does: pull up your library’s website and click into “Library of Things” or “Services.” The most useful free thing in your neighborhood might be on a shelf right now, waiting for you to check it out.
