So why are common repositories of freely accessible resources, such as libraries, still important? Eco-socialist Derek Wall argues that ‘sharing provides a way of restoring economics to its original promise as a science that finds ways of matching scarce resources with unlimited human wants’. He says that, in its simplest form, it can ‘give prosperity without wrecking the global environment. If you make goods that last longer and you share more, then it’s a way of giving people more material prosperity’.
In addition to the traditional model of sharing information and culture epitomised by the public lending library, new forms of social lending relating to more physical things have also been developed. From public bike schemes to tool libraries, the ethos of sharing is alive and well. There are currently 33 tool libraries across the US, for example.