What Gizzago is
A quick tour of what Gizzago does for your library, and what it leaves to you.
Gizzago is the system behind a lending library. It was built alongside a real toy library, for the people who actually run these places: a coordinator with a phone in the evening, volunteers on a trestle table in a church hall with patchy Wi-Fi, and trustees who need honest numbers for funders.
It works for toy libraries, libraries of things, tool libraries and baby and sling libraries. Gizzago uses your library's own words, so a tool library sees "Tools" where these guides say "Toys".
What it does
| Part | What it is for |
|---|---|
| The desk | A tablet screen for the session itself. Volunteers unlock it with a PIN, lend and take back toys with a piece check, take money, register new families and cash up. |
| Toys | Your catalogue: toys with their own labels, counted stock (five balance boards on one label), kits and party packs, photos, piece lists, repairs and missing pieces. |
| Capture | Photograph donations on a phone. Gizzago suggests the details, a person checks them, and they go into the catalogue as drafts. |
| Members | Families and their households, children (birth month and year only), memberships, payments, notes and a full history of everything that has happened. |
| Reservations | Members reserve toys online for a session and collect them. Volunteers get a pick list. "Tell me when it's back" keeps a fair queue. |
| Calendar | Lending sessions, closures, and events such as Stay & Play with places, bookings, waiting lists and check-in. |
| Your public site | A website for your library with your colours and logo: the catalogue, joining online, events and your opening times. |
| Reminders before toys are due, overdue chasers, membership renewals and booking confirmations, sent in your library's name. | |
| Reports | Today's to-do list, session cash-ups, money, the Gift Aid schedule, a funder report and an audit log. |
What a library needs, and how Gizzago answers it
- More families borrowing. A clear public catalogue that works on a phone, joining online in a few minutes, and reservations tied to real session times.
- Less admin at the desk. Scan a card, scan the toys, done. The due date lands on a day you are open. Fees follow your rules, so every volunteer charges the same.
- Fewer overdue chases. Reminders go out on their own, and the overdue list sends a polite chaser in one tap.
- Toys catalogued quickly. Capture turns a box of donations into draft records in an afternoon, and the desk can lend a toy before it has been catalogued.
- Honest numbers. Every loan, visit and booking counts towards the funder report, and the money adds up at cash-up.
- Safe with people's details. Staff sign in with two-step sign-in, volunteers use a PIN on a desk tablet that locks itself, and children are recorded by birth month and year only.
What Gizzago does not do (yet)
We would rather tell you now than have you find out on a Saturday morning.
- Splitting one payment across two methods at the desk is not available.
- Term-time session rules are not available yet: add half terms and holidays as closures.
- Eventbrite is not connected yet. Gizzago has its own events and bookings instead.
- Taking payment by card online needs your library to connect its own Stripe account first.
- Renewing or returning a loan without a session (from the back office) is only possible at the desk for now.