While health libraries are known as places of learning for faculty and students in science and medicine, they can also be spaces for bonding and skill sharing for all community members who use the library. UBC’s Woodward Library embodied this mentality in November 2024 and February 2025, when we hosted our Repair Cafes. Hosted by UBC Library’s Library Climate Action Team as programs associated with British Columbia Library Association’s Climate Action Week and UBC’s Climate Emergency Week events, the repair cafes were spaces in which students, staff, faculty, and community members were welcomed to bring broken electronics and clothing items and learn to repair them. The intention behind this initiative was not only to provide a repair service, but to encourage participants to learn to do their own repairs, empowering them to make more sustainable choices in the future. Drawing on local talent, volunteers were on hand to assist participants with hand and machine sewing, darning, and repair of small electronics. While attendees waited for their turn at the repair table, they were able to make reusable beeswax food wraps, attempt a climate-themed Lego challenge, check out a mending book display, or have a free treat.

This lighting talk will discuss the benefits we saw from this event and the challenges we encountered. It will conclude with a brief discussion of how community engagement events related to collaborative learning and climate change fit in with the ethos of health and science academic libraries.