Take advantage of the seed library at Carlsbad Public Library

We always want to know what our patrons want. We know that your ideas and feedback and can help shape the services we offer. Our seed library is a perfect example of this. In our old card catalog file are small pouches of seeds. We allow patrons to take a few packets of the seeds home for free. You do not even need a library card to be able to have some seeds.

A while back a library patron requested that we add seeds to our library collection. We did a lot of research and started our collection a little while ago. The collection has been really been embraced by the community. Patrons have even donated their own seeds to help our collection grow. So far the library has not spend any money to create or maintain this collection.

When researching the library when we started part of the challenge was where to store the seeds yet keep them easily accessible to the public. The organizational task fit perfectly with our old cataloguing system still located behind the circulation desk. We also liked the idea of utilizing the system in a new way since it is such an important part of our history.

Because of the success of our seed library we have starting offering monthly Seeds and Sprouts Swap. One Saturday a month at 9am you can come and get a bigger selection of plants. We encourage the public to bring harder to store sees and sprouts to this event. It is a great time to exchange, collect, and learn more about local plants and growing. Many community members have been able to share tips and tricks of growing in our region. If you are new to the area it can be an easy way to learn about local plants, how to grow in our region and meet new people.

We started our seed library because we truly want to bring the community services, programs, and items that the want and will utilize. But there are other benefits to our seed library. Have you ever bought a packet of seeds and had a large amount left that you are never going to use? Do you save them? Do you throw them away? Not really sure what to do. Now the solution can be simply, drop them off at the library and share with the community. Make sure to pick up some new seeds while you’re here. There is also a collaborative learning about the library and our programs related to the library. Patrons can grow with these seeds and they are able to learn and share which types of seeds thrive in our climate and ones that don’t. They are able to share this knowledge. It is a great chance too for patrons who grow strong thriving plants to share the seeds with us, and the next set of growth should be stronger and more resilient and adapted to our specific area. We have many drawers of our old card catalog open our goal is to continue to grow our library until all of them are full. Make sure to stop by the library to learn more about our seed library. If there are seeds you would like but we don’t have fill out a request for purchase just like you would for a book.

Do you have an idea? Make sure to share it. We are always willing to look into something to see if we can implement a program or service that could benefit our community. And it could be just like our seed library a huge success.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Take advantage of the seed library at Carlsbad Public Library