Library of Things Pattern
Use this pattern to encourage your customers to share their products in their local community.
Watch the tutorial for this pattern
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The Library of Things Pattern is part of the extended use stage of the customer experience.
In the circular settings of his product, the customer can enable it to become part of a local library of things. Libraries of things usually are physical storages in local communities in which the commune or the citizens share objects like books or tools.
In this example, the library is digital. If the customer enables his product to be part of that library, he still keeps it in his household, but people living in his neighbourhood can lend it. It works a lot like sharing, but without a fee.
The customer can define how he wants to be contacted, and what type of security he requests to prevent theft or damage. For other people to know about his offer, he of course needs to connect to some type of social network.
As all this only has to work on a hyperlocal level, a charming alternative o a digital posting is an old school notice that he can print and pin to a physical bulletin board in a neighbourhood shop or my letter box.
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A lot of people would like to share products to others or lend products from others that they do not use often, but it’s hard to organize with people you don’t know and without any kind of trustee.
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Sharing products in local libraries of things makes better use of products that are manufactured, reduces the number of products that need to be manufactured and causes no emissions for transport and logistics.
