Published 5:00 am Sunday, July 12, 2026
By Matthew Claxton
The portable solar panels offered by the Fraser Valley Regional Library are available to anyone with a card. (FVRL)
With summer camping season here, the Fraser Valley Regional Library is reminding its cardholders they can check out solar panels.
The portable panels, intended for campers and hikers, were added to the catalogue in 2023 as part of the Playground collection, which includes a variety of items well outside what would traditionally be found in a library.
The library began with 100 of the solar panels.
“They have been consistently [checked] out, of course,” said Heather Scoular, FVRL’s director of customer experience.
About 70 per cent of the panels are checked out at any one time, with popularity picking up in the summer.
Libraries have traditionally loaned out books and audiovisual items, which have evolved over the years from books on tape to DVDs and ebooks.
FVRL’s Playground collection has steadily expanded into a number of items that are fun, practical, or educational over the years.
The current Playground catalogue includes 17 separate items. They include ukuleles, portable Blu-ray players, programmable Sphero robots, disc golf kits, backpacks for bird and bat watching, telescopes, monitors for air quality, radon, and home energy measurement.
Providing about 24 watts of power, and with grommets to attach it to backpack frames or tent poles, it has three USB ports and is intended to charge phones, cameras, smart watches, flashlights and other small electronic items when away from a regular electrical socket.
The latest item added to the Playground, earlier in June, is the ChompSaw, which allows precision cutting of cardboard for crafts.
Scoular said the FVRL’s mandate includes a commitment to literacy, but also to help people understand technology in a changing world.
Most of the items in the Playground are about the environment, sustainability, and STEM education.
Scoular said the FVRL is always considering new items to add to the Playground collection, or updating existing items.

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