DURHAM, N.C. — You can leave the downtown library here with free packs of seeds, borrowed tools, a borrowed laptop and a WiFi hotspot, plus a podcast you recorded and a model that you 3D printed.
Also books. Durham County libraries have books, of course. But like a growing number of libraries around the state, Durham has embraced “the library of things,” making the library a community center for much more than reading.
This downtown facility, still new after a $44 million rebuild, has a place for teenagers to play video games, computers where kids can do homework and a sensory room where young people with autism spectrum disorder, or anyone else, can lay on a waterbed that vibrates to music.
The library loans out tools and offers home repair courses. Soon it’ll add a laser that will engrave anything you can draw onto a wooden disc. That’s part of a “makerspace” that…
