Clearwater Countryside Library: Torque Wrenches and Seed Packets

You can check out a packet of vegetable seeds here.

Also tools and a telescope through the city’s Library of Things, and a pass to a local museum, and a study room for a remote meeting, and, if you insist, a book. One regular put it well after discovering the seed collection: he thought being able to borrow tools and torque wrenches was already unusual, and then found out he could check out seeds. This is my favorite kind of library news. Somebody decided a library’s job is lending people the things they need and can’t justify buying, and then followed that thought all the way to tools and telescopes. I wish every branch in the country had that much nerve.

What is Clearwater Countryside Library?

A branch of the Clearwater Public Library System at 2642 Sabal Springs Drive, in the Countryside area of north Clearwater near the mall. The system phone is 727-562-4970 and the site is myclearwaterlibrary.com. One hundred and sixty-one Google reviews at four point seven, the highest rating of any Clearwater branch.

The building carries what a good neighborhood branch should: free wifi, public computers, study rooms, and separate sections for teens and for children so the three audiences aren’t competing for the same room.

One visitor described it as clean and organized, with distinct teen and children’s areas, and noted that patrons can pick up passes for museums in the area.

It’s part of the Pinellas Public Library Cooperative, so the card is county-wide and holds placed online land here.

Does Clearwater Countryside Library lend tools?

This is the thing to know about Countryside, and it’s useful.

The Clearwater Public Library System runs a Library of Things it calls the Thingamabrary. It lends tools, telescopes, tech kits, hot spots, art kits, board games, bike locks and ukulele kits, and you have to be 18 or over to borrow tools, hot spots and tech kits. Tools are the kit you need once, for one job, and then store for a decade.

The economics of that are obvious once you see them.

A torque wrench is expensive, used rarely, and sits in a garage between uses. A library already knows how to catalogue an object, lend it, chase it and repair it. Extending that from books to tools is a small operational step and a large practical one for anybody who does their own repairs.

The sense of this pleases me enormously. Forty neighbors each buying a torque wrench for one job is money thrown into the garage, and one wrench on a library shelf serves all forty. I’d sooner see a city fund that than another shiny kiosk.

The seed library works the same way. You take seeds, grow them, and keep them, with nothing to bring back. One customer said he comes in every week to get seeds to grow in his yard, and described the results as beautiful. If a tool is the reason you’re going, note that not every branch participates. Oldsmar doesn’t, for example.

Study rooms and remote work

The study rooms here get reserved instead of fought over. That matters. One visitor booked a work space to run a remote meeting while on holiday and described the staff as helpful and friendly about it. That’s the modern use case for a branch library and Countryside handles it properly. Bookable rooms are the quiet hero here. I’ve got no patience for the coffee shop call where somebody shouts their quarterly numbers over the milk steamer, and a free room with a door fixes that for everybody at the next table too.

Another reviewer called it a good place for quiet study and research, having come in for something else entirely and stayed. The practical point for anybody working from a laptop: a bookable room with a door beats a coffee shop table for any call, and it costs nothing. In a county where the Main Library closes early and shuts at weekends, Countryside is open until seven four nights and all day Saturday.

What about the things it does not have

One reviewer turned up to send a fax and found there was no fax machine. That surprised them. They still gave the place credit as a quiet study and research space on the way out.

It’s a useful reminder to check before you make a special trip for one service. Library service menus vary branch by branch across this county more than people expect, especially for tools, passes, and the odd bits of office equipment. Call the system line first if the whole trip depends on one thing.

Don’t hold the missing fax against the place. Every branch has to choose what to carry, and I’ll take a seed library over a fax machine any day of the week.

What does Countryside Library offer writers?

The bookable room, first. A door that closes is the difference between a productive afternoon and a noisy one, and this branch has them and takes reservations.

The museum passes second, for anybody researching local material.

And the tools. That sounds unrelated and isn’t. A library that lends tools has already decided it’s in the business of giving people access to expensive things they need occasionally. That’s the same logic behind the reference desk, the database subscriptions and the interlibrary loan system, all of which are sitting unused by most writers who pay for them in tax.

Too many writers pay for all of this in their taxes and then buy a database subscription out of pocket, or give up on a research question, because nobody told them to ask at the desk. Ask. The reference staff exist for exactly the question you think is too obscure. For getting your own book onto these shelves, the piece on Pinellas library shelves explains how selectors buy.

When is Clearwater Countryside Library open?

Monday through Thursday from ten in the morning until seven at night. Friday and Saturday ten until five. Closed Sunday.

Six days including Saturday. That’s the significant difference from the Clearwater Main Library. It closes at the weekend entirely. If your free time is Saturday, Countryside is the Clearwater branch to use.

Sabal Springs Drive sits off Countryside Boulevard in north Clearwater, with the library’s own lot. From Safety Harbor or Dunedin it’s about ten minutes. The natural pairing is the Barnes & Noble on US 19, a few minutes away and open until nine.

Where it sits

Clearwater runs several branches under one card and they’re not interchangeable. The Main Library downtown has the roof terrace and the views and closes at weekends. East Community on the SPC campus keeps the widest hours. North Greenwood is the newest building. Clearwater Beach is tiny and open three short days.

Countryside is the one with the tools, the seeds, the reservable rooms and the best rating in the system. For most practical purposes it’s the most useful branch Clearwater has, and it’s the one I’d hold up to any city asking what a modern branch library should look like.

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