The day after the Oakland Public Library reopens after a long weekend, branch manager Nick Raymond doesn’t have time to talk. “I could give you maybe five seconds,” he says good-naturedly before returning to the flocking patrons.

It’s a scene more typical of a blockbuster opening at a movie theater than Wednesday afternoon at a library. But Raymond manages a different kind of collection: Oakland is among a growing number of libraries across the U.S. that lend tools–as in awls, sledgehammers, and hacksaws–as well as other unexpected items like bakeware, Moog synthesizers, and human skeletons to keep pace with the times.

Some libraries have broadened their collections in response to a dip in print material circulation–a tactile solution to digital disruption.

But many see it as a natural extension of their core mission to serve communities through the collective buying power of tax dollars. And community needs have changed.

“It’s only a new mission if you look at libraries narrowly,” says Eli Neiburger, deputy director of the Ann Arbor Public Library. “Libraries have always been a place to access rare, hard-to-find objects. Commercial books aren’t rare, hard-to-find objects anymore, so library collections are being used in different ways. We use ‘Big Data’–which in the library world is just called ‘data’–to analyze what items are in demand across the system.”

During the economic downturn, many patrons rethought expensive investments such as lawnmowers, or cut back on frivolous purchases like a new cake pan for every birthday, says American Library Association president Courtney Young.

Libraries stepped in to fill the void.