SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
A new library in Colorado encourages visitors to check out not just books, but the natural world. It lends things like camping gear and snowshoes and trekking poles, and it also has outdoor spaces where people can climb on boulders and splash around in a mud pit. Maddie Browning reports.
MADDIE BROWNING, BYLINE: Ten-year-old Layla Saavedra walks across a gravel path in a prairie field.
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BROWNING: She records sounds of crickets chirping...
(SOUNDBITE OF CRICKETS CHIRPING)
BROWNING: ...And sticks hitting a metal bench.
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BROWNING: She's in a roots and rhythms workshop where kids create their own music from nature. Saavedra has never made music before, but she's excited to find her own rhythms.
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LAYLA SAAVEDRA: Sometimes I just go outside and sit and wait for the nature to make its own music.
BROWNING: Denver based hip-hop artist RO$$A¥ takes the kids recordings and mixes all of the sounds together to develop a unique track.
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BROWNING: Anythink Nature Library in the Denver suburb of Thornton is the nation's first public nature library where visitors can explore gardens, rent camping gear and access a series of trail systems. Branch manager Maria Mayo-Peaseley says the design team took inspiration from childhood memories.
MARIA MAYO-PEASELEY: A lot of us spoke to just those barefoot summers and playing in the mud or just feeling the wind on your face and how formative those types of experiences can be. We really wanted to take a risk and create some spaces that provide carefree experiences for children and people of all ages here in Adams County.
BROWNING: Thornton bought the 140-acre library site in 2003. The city was looking into options for it and reached out to Anythink Libraries. Executive director Mark Fink says they initially envisioned a cultural center, but building a nature library felt like the right pivot.
MARK FINK: We have seven other libraries in the county. We have backyards at our libraries, and we do a lot of outdoor programming and a lot of programs around environmental sustainability. We have community gardens at three of our other locations. So we've been doing this work for 15 years, and we also heard from residents that they really wanted more opportunities to access nature.
BROWNING: The library offers 1,500 Try-Its - rentable tools for engaging with nature like hiking poles, snowshoes and bird-watching kits, all available for free with a library card.
FINK: So we're just trying to reduce some of those barriers for all kinds of different outdoor experiences.
BROWNING: The library's advisory council also worked with Indigenous leaders like Sid Whiting Jr. His favorite space is a circular room with charred wood walls that smell like a campfire and glowing lights on the ceiling to mimic stars.
SID WHITING JR: We have our oral histories being told in the dead of the winter night by the light of the campfire in a tipi, talking to our youth, passing down our creation stories, the stories of our ancestors.
BROWNING: Representatives from the Los Angeles Public Library and Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas visited Anythink Nature Library to learn more about its outdoor programming. Fink says he looks forward to the space inspiring other nature-focused projects across the country. For NPR News, I'm Maddie Browning in Thornton, Colorado.
(SOUNDBITE OF GAVIOTA'S "CITY OF THE SUN") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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