Toy libraries go from strength to strength

“Yes! They’re going to open a toy library!”

It was 2016 and Emily Corcoran was pregnant with her first child.

She was excited; she had just heard about a toy library opening up on Cardigan St, across the road from her home.

Knowing there would be a toy library nearby took some of the pressure off. Ms Corcoran and her partner lived in an apartment, and the prospect of storing everything for their new baby was daunting.

“If you have a suburban home with a garage, people pop stuff in the garage to store. That’s not really an option for city families,” she said.

It’s a service which has been helping new parents in Carlton and Kensington for many years.

This year, Melbourne Community Toy Library is entering into its 20th year of operation and is going from strength to strength, with a new branch having just opened up in Docklands last month, as well as a pop-up trial library operating in West Melbourne.

It’s now nearly five years since the Carlton branch relocated to Cardigan St, and Ms Corcoran is now the president of the community group.

She and her partner first joined the library when her son was four months old, and they quickly became frequent visitors.

“It was a lifeline for us as new parents … we used to pop over every week or so to borrow and swap toys,” she said.

The Melbourne Community Toy Library has toys which cater to babies and children aged up to six years old.

There are several different categories of toys, from first toys for new babies to jigsaws, construction toys, games and musical instruments, and parents can browse the available toys via the Melbourne Community Toy Library website.

The library is made up of a combination of toys which have been donated, as well as toys which have been bought by the group.

“Some of our toys are 20 years old and they’re still going strong … and you think about how often they would have ended up in landfill,” Ms Corcoran said.

When using the library’s funding to buy new toys, they try to go for more durable, sustainable options.

Melbourne Community Toy Library is run by a volunteer committee and over the past two years has been funded through a Social Innovation Partnerships grant from the City of Melbourne.

Ms Corcoran has her fingers crossed for more funding from the council going forward.

“We’re in that cycle where we hope we’ll receive funding. And we would love sustained funding from the City of Melbourne,” she said.

Ms Corcoran herself has been on the committee since 2016, the same year she joined the library.

She laughed when she described the timing of the meetings; she said they’re held at parent-friendly hours, after the kids were asleep.

“[The committee is] parents of young kids, meeting once a month at 8pm,” Ms Corcoran said. “That committee decides on the direction of things.”

Currently each of the libraries is open twice a week – once during the working week, and once on Saturday mornings.

But in the future, she’s hoping to open the library for more days, giving parents the freedom to visit whenever is convenient.

“Our dream for the toy library is for it to be open at Carlton five days a week, and families can just know it’s there … drop in, have a play and connect with other people from the community,” she said.

She said last year’s COVID lockdowns highlighted how isolated parents in the City of Melbourne had been.

“We want to create a space where parents can come, where kids can play, relax,” she said •