Libraries are becoming a cost-of-living hack, and some are seeing a surge in sign-ups

This month, a library card in Glenview, Illinois, doubles as a discount pass. The suburban Chicago library has partnered with 34 local businesses to offer deals to cardholders throughout September, which is Library Card Sign-Up Month, from 10% off wine to a free month of robotics classes.

With basics like electricity and groceries straining budgets, small indulgences like buying a hardcover book or going to the movies can be harder for people to justify. Tickets for movies, theaters, and concerts alone have climbed 27% since before the pandemic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. 

A library card not only unlocks thousands of books, movies, and TV shows for free, but in some places it can also score discounts on everyday purchases. And some libraries are seeing more people sign up as they expand into services that people would otherwise pay for, from streaming services and tech support to repairs, food distribution, and places to meet without spending money. 

The Brooklyn Public Library saw 150,018 new card registrations year-to-date through August, up 16% from two years ago, a spokesperson told Fortune. Glenview added 2,656 new cardholders as of August 31, an 8% increase from last year, according to a spokesperson. Its circulation of audiobooks, movies, ebooks and TV streaming also jumped 38%, she said. 

Some libraries are also teaming up with local businesses to help stretch cardholders’ budgets as prices rose 3.4% in the past year. Glenview partnered with 25 local businesses to offer discounts and special deals to library cardholders throughout September, turning a way to get books into saving money as Americans continue to grapple with the cost of living. 

A place where you don’t have to spend—and get repairs, groceries and tech help in return

“The things that are bringing people into the library are changing,” Carolyn Bennett Glauda, programs and outreach manager at the Southeastern New York Library Resources Council, told Fortune.“Libraries are kind of the last bastion of a place where you can go and get help for any number of things beyond just books and physical media.”

Through digital lending services like Hoopla and Libby, library card holders can borrow ebooks, audiobooks and movies without shelling out money for subscriptions, which cost the average American $111 per month across all services, according to a CNET survey. 

But libraries are also giving out more than options for free digital entertainment. Glauda said she’s training librarians to be “digital navigators” who help patrons get a device or learn to use their own. The initiative is funded by a mix of state and federal grants. 

“Instead of having to go to the Apple Store or the Geek Squad, they can go to the library and get help with getting on Zoom or creating a resume or just troubleshooting strange problems, like with accessibility features,” Glauda said. 

Each library is “uniquely attuned to their community,” she said. Glauda has seen libraries hosting “repair cafes” that help visitors fix and reuse lamps, clothes, jewelry and toys so they don’t go into a landfill. On the quirkier side, her local library in Beacon, New York, lends out a robot cat designed to be a companion for senior citizens. 

Libraries are also using these services to advertise what they already offer. Glauda’s local library in Beacon, New York, recently cleared part of the street out front and held a few parking spaces so a food distribution van could pull up and hand out groceries directly to people, no library card required. It also moved the Main Street community refrigerator indoors after it kept breaking down in bad weather.

“It used to be that people would come to the library and then find out. The common refrain is always, ‘Nobody ever told me that you had all of this,’” Glauda said. “Now libraries are being a lot more proactive.”

Recession indicator or blip?

When people cut spending, free alternatives like libraries start to look more appealing, and some research suggests library use rises during hard times. 

A 2022 study published in Public Library Quarterly by Michael Mabe, director of the Chesterfield County Public Library in Virginia, found that visits and checkouts per person at 541 highly rated U.S. public libraries rose modestly but at a statistically significant amount during the Great Recession. Library card ownership also hit a record of 68% of Americans having one in August 2008, weeks before Lehman Brothers collapsed, according to a Harris Poll commissioned by the American Library Association at the time. 

But a 1985 study in The Library Quarterly found no significant relationship between local economic conditions and library use, though under looser measures, card registrations did rise with unemployment.

Like other unofficial recession signals such as the lipstick index, which tracks whether shoppers swap big purchases for small treats, library sign-ups could be an imperfect read on the economy. After all, part of it could be Gen Z’s love of analog hobbies and search for antidotes to digital fatigue in places to think. 

Libraries are also some of the last surviving third spaces for people to get together. Glauda, who is also an elected member of the Beacon City Council, said she holds office hours for constituents in the library, which has a room set aside for civic meetings. Libraries also have other free programming like crafting classes and puzzle exchanges.

Whatever the economy does next, libraries remain some of the last third spaces for people to get together. Glauda, who is also an elected member of the Beacon City Council, said she holds office hours for constituents in the library, which has a room set aside for civic meetings. They also offer free programming like crafting classes and puzzle exchanges.

“It’s a meeting place where you don’t have to buy anything, and it’s open,” Glauda said, noting the alternatives are churches or bars, where you either have to worship or pay.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com