[Tagging] Proposal - Library of things and Tool library

[Imagoiq]

Thanks everyone for all your messages! I didn't think there will be so 
many replies and I'm quite "late to the party".

Graeme and Andrew,  thanks for digging up the archive, it expanded my 
vision on some points.

Mateusz, I didn't find any good illustration with an open license 
and…I'm currently not a user of such library, but I've sent an e-mail 
yesterday to gather some information and picture to "Share:Frome Library 
of things" who are involved in "Building a Better World" 
(https://sharefrome.org/better-world/) – which means use Openstreetmap. 
We'll see.

--- "Borrowing center" and generic term vs term in usage ---

I wasn't aware of this term and it's quite interesting. It might also be 
not use because it's difficult to use in some language ?! e.g. in 
French, I don't see a way to translate it. "Centre d'emprunt"/"Centre de 
prêt" may be heard as a place where you are requesting a loan (in my 
search engine, the second link on the list talk already about money and 
come from "investopedia.com").

Crazy thinking: using "Borrowing center" or "object_rental", …. would 
this mean that one day we should rename all library as well as we are 
currently going more and more toward "hybrid library". Some traditional 
libraries as mention also lend tools, things and even seeds!

On using a generic term, I can see the rationale behind using a 
"standardised" word, but I agree with Paul, this should match the usage. 
Tomato fields are classified as vegetables on Key:crop not as a fruit ;) 
(https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:crop)

The need of subtag to define what are the types of objects a library 
lends is certain and there is a discussion about that here: 
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:amenity%3Dlibrary#Types_of_libraries. 
The main question is how far should we go? Is it possible to have 
well-defined categories for those things? Wouldn't make too much choice? 
Also instead of thing_type=* I would go for library:material_type=* (or 
other library:...=*) just to ensure that traditional library can also 
lend those things.

Finally, I also think that's important to have multiple amenity tags 
which imply the primary goal of the place.