At a recent art show, Victoria Tullman went piece to piece and artist to artist until she found something that moved her enough to take it home. She claimed two color etchings, but no money changed hands.

And like that, the Oakland Art Library had just lent its first work.

“This is a wonderful concept,” said Tullman, who lives in San Francisco’s Nob Hill and has been collecting art for 25 years. “It’s particularly great for people who are just starting out and want to have an original piece on their wall. They come, they look, they see, and springboard from there before they have to make a big investment.”

The Oakland Art Library is only open for browsing one night a month at the Trending Inn, a few blocks up 12th Street from the Oakland City Center BART Station. There are velvet ropes at the entrance and a desk librarian — on this night wearing a vintage Golden State Warriors jumpsuit — making sure everybody has their library card. There’s also a bar with another librarian pumping free beer from a keg into red plastic cups. It’s that kind of library.

“I want it to be hip and little bit subversive,” said head librarian Luke Fraser, who cultivated 50 Bay Area artists through Instagram direct messaging, and persuaded them to bring in art for lending.

“Do I get a deposit or something?” asked El Cerrito artist Adeleh Moghadam, after her work was claimed by Tullman. “I’ve never done this before.”

Nobody has done it quite like this. Fraser has not yet worked out all the kinks, like how to ensure that the art that goes out the door will ever make it back to its owner. He has an app in mind, but that’s still just a concept.

“I’m trying to create a culture,” says Fraser, 35, a gum-snapping, fast-talking Oakland street artist. He grew up in Berkeley and attended a Montessori school, which has a lot to do with what he is trying to create.

“I like to think of this as the Montessorification of art,” he said. “If you get a bunch of curious people in a room and add a dose of inspiration, amazing things can happen.”

The library began with an April open house, and 130 people came to study the concept. On Thursday, May 16, it officially opens, with plans to be open on the third Thursday of the month to coincide with late hours at nearby Oakland art galleries.

Members can bring a guest, but there are no walk-ins. Visitors must RSVP at oaklandartlibrary.com, and only those who pay a $20 monthly membership fee can borrow the art.

“I would continue to take BART over here to go to this — and that says something,” said San Francisco attorney Kate Hendrickson, who attended the first open house. “I just moved and I have no art on my walls, so I’m happy to have a place like this where I can get to know some stuff before committing.”

The lending policy is on a first-come, first-served basis, but it would be ill-mannered to pull a painting off the wall and haul it around. The idea is for patrons to alert one of the librarians, who will then place a red sticker on it. At the end of the evening, the piece will be bubble-wrapped and delivered curbside. Loans are for three months, but the hope is that by then the borrower will love the art too much to return it. At this point, a price can be negotiated directly between borrower and artist, away from the library. Fraser does not demand a cut — after all, this is a library.

“The goal is to sell art,” he said. “We think if it is hanging on someone’s wall it is much more likely to sell than if it is sitting in an art gallery.”

The overhead is low in the shoe box-shaped basement showroom, a space the Trending Inn has loaned to the library, in keeping with the spirit. Lighting for the art is supplied by floor lamps, table lamps and candelabras picked up at Goodwill.

“Most artists, myself included, have a ton of art sitting in their studio or their closet,” Fraser said. “All I’m asking is for them to bring in one piece.”

When contacted through Instagram, however, many artists were glad to bring in more than one piece of their artwork.

“Why would I not want to participate in something that is looking at a new way of giving people access to art?” said photographer Andy Paris, who drove all the way from Pacifica to contribute a photograph of a curling wave. Moghadam was just glad to have an audience for the series of etchings she calls “Puberty.”

“Everywhere else, my art got rejected because of my content,” she said.

Fraser is testing out limiting most artists to one or two pieces — though he managed to squeeze in six pieces of his own. On the wall he’d hung a gold basketball hoop with a beaded turquoise net and mosaic backboard. At the bottom of the stairs he had five mannequins wearing his own street fashions to stand like greeters.

“It’s way cool. Perfect for my ADD,” said Eric Bartesch, who lives in Lake Merritt and works in construction. “There’s something for everyone. You’ve got oils, you’ve got acrylics.”

There are also landscapes and portraits, and a collection from prisoners on death row at San Quentin. Each piece is accompanied by a label with the artist’s name and Instagram handle.

“We want people to communicate,” Fraser said. “We are not trying to create the illusion that we are some kind of broker.”

San Francisco political consultant Celeste Sempere said the art library is in line with what is already happening. “There are so many other areas where we have the opportunity to share or borrow — with homes, with cars,” Sempere said. “I love the idea of being able to do it with art.”

There is a rating system at the Oakland Art Library, with patrons given a paper ballot to list their top five pieces to submit to a ballot box. The most popular works will be showcased for the May event, while the others are returned to their owners to make room for new art to be displayed.

Fraser hopes to see this concept spreading to neighborhood branches and even new art libraries in other cities.

“We are trying to turn art into an experience,” he said, “and I think people are moving toward that.”

Oakland Art Library: 7 -9 p.m. Thursday, May 16. Trending Inn, 357 12th St., Oakland. Reservation required at oaklandartlibrary.com.