Charitable Programmes

Nailing It! creates a women-only space for learning DIY and woodworking. This is primarily in the form of 12 week courses that include making something together for the community and end with a collective celebration to share the class achievement with others. This course has a strong emphasis on learning new skills in a flexible and welcoming environment, focusing on the wellbeing of the students and what they need to get the most out of their course. 

The programme is open to all local community groups that may benefit from long term support and access to the workshop. The programme focuses on creating a regular, reliable and safer space for learning and community building. The content of the classes is tailored to the needs and interests of the students attending, and designed by the teacher working with those students to make the learning as collaborative as possible. 

Come along and work on your own bike with the assistance of our volunteers. Our keen cyclists wanted us to make more of the bike tools we had, and so put together the idea of the Cycle Kitchen, where people can sign up every Wednesday to work on their bikes with expert support if needed. Or if someone knows what they are doing, they can just call in and use our tools. All free of charge.

We’re looking for neighbourhood groups keen to bring us closer to you! Thanks to some local neighbourhood trailblazers who were keen to launch and run their own satellite branch of the Edinburgh Tool Library in Colinton, we’ve been extending our services to the South West of Edinburgh! Are you part of a group or community that would love access to our resources but might need a bit more support? Do you work for an organisation that might be interested in hosting or collaborating with ETL? Let us know where we are needed!

In response to growing demand, we have set up a production line to build Edinburgh’s Little Free Libraries. We have already built dozens of the LFLs you see across the city, and are keen to see even more out there, reusing books and bringing the joy of reading to everyone. Read more about why we love them and how we could build one for your local area!

We love sharing tools, and space too! So we offer 24h access to our workshops to early-stage makers (from needleworkers to upholsterers, carpenters to artists) in exchange for a set number of hours spent leading workshops and community builds! Deal?

The Tool Library has been busy making accessibility ramps as part of a project with the disabled access review website Euan’s Guide.

The programme enabled local businesses to order a bespoke, removable ramp, which helps businesses become more accessible for wheelchair users, families with buggies, delivery people, and anyone who struggles with steps. For this reason we have called them ‘Welcome Ramps’. If your business was in Leith, you could have got yours for free!

Easy Sharing was a collaboration between the Edinburgh Tool Library, myTurn (worldwide software for libraries of things), and i-PuK (collaborative platforms for climate-friendly communities) and is also in partnership with WHALE Arts, the Broomhouse Centre, North Edinburgh Arts, granton:hub, and University of Edinburgh Living Lab.

At the heart of the project was a six-month pilot service to deliver tools to pick-up points at the four West-Edinburgh community partners. Easy Sharing users reserved items from the library catalogue and designated their preferred pick-up location. We were delivering the tools to these pick-up points on particular days with Eddie Van Haulin’, our electric van (still part of the team!).

The Young Tooligans Programme was split into two sections – Schools and Youth
Organisations, each with a distinctly different approach.

• In schools (Portobello High School, Broughton High School, Trinity Academy, George Harriot’s School) we explored design thinking, the circular economy, carbon literacy, climate change and team building with a design challenge ‘Chair of the future!’
• In youth organisations we worked with a more open approach, collaborating with the organisation in developing a workshop which allowed the young people to come together to build something useful for their centre or community.

This was a nine-month pilot service to offer the possibility for Edinburgh residents to borrow tools when they come to borrow books at their local book libraries. We had 3 Tool Boxes filled up with the most commonly borrowed tools stored at Piershill Library, Portobello Library, and Craigmillar Library.