The Knoxville Public Library will be hosting a holiday concert on December 14th featuring students from the Knoxville Middle School band; and it hits home for the library, because some of those students may have been able to sharpen their music skills with the library’s help.

Roslin Thompson from the library tells KNIA/KRLS News they have been providing a special service for budding musicians.

“We have a program where we loan out musical instruments to middle school band kids, and that’s been very, very successful at the library,” Thompson says.

The school has been hard-pressed to keep up with the demand for musical instruments, and some of the ones they do have are aging.

The library itself has a limited supply, but is always looking for donations to add to it; they recently obtained a tenor sax, and Thompson says she was able to find a carrying case.

Thompson says other libraries are getting into loaning out items beyond books and DVDs; some are starting to provide everything from cribs and highchairs to tools — items which people can’t afford to buy or rent, and which they only need for a short time. She and the library staff are now looking into the possibility of offering a similar service.