About Gizzago
Built for mission-led libraries, not margin-led ones.
Lending libraries do a lot with very little: a borrowed hall, a few hours a week, volunteers who change every term. The software they use should give time back, not take it.
Why it exists
Gizzago is built by a trustee of a UK toy library, alongside that library’s volunteers. The software they had was slow at the desk, could not count pieces, made parents enter three children whether they had them or not, and could not tell the trustees how many families they had helped.
Nobody was investing in the tools these libraries use, because there is little money in it. We think that is the point: a library that lends a family a sling, a drill or a box of puzzles is doing something worth doing properly.
What we promise
- Say what the software does today, and what it does not yet.
- Keep the desk fast enough for a queue with a toddler in it.
- Keep libraries’ data safe, small and theirs.
- Listen to the people who use it, especially the volunteers.
Security and trust
Families trust you with their details. You can trust us with them.
Stored in the EU
Every library's records, photos and backups are kept in Cloudflare's EU jurisdiction. Nothing is stored in the US. That is lawful for UK libraries under the UK's adequacy rules, and we say so plainly rather than claim “UK hosting”.
One library, one database
Each library's data lives in its own database, not in rows beside everyone else's. A second check inside each one refuses any request that is not for that library.
Passkeys and two-step sign-in
Members, volunteers and staff can sign in with a passkey, a password or an emailed link. The people who run a library use two-step sign-in.
A PIN for each volunteer
The desk tablet is enrolled once; each volunteer unlocks it with their own PIN. No shared login taped to the laptop, and a record of who lent what.
Less about children
Children are recorded by month and year of birth, never a full birthday, never as users. Safeguarding notes are visible only to the safeguarding lead.
Card details never touch us
Payments go through Stripe's own checkout into the library's own Stripe account. We never see or store a card number.
Nightly backups
Every library is backed up every night, and a backup can be restored into a fresh copy to check it before anything is replaced.
An audit log you can read
Who changed what and when, for every library, downloadable by its admins.
Open where it helps
Your data, your way out.
- Export members, loans and the catalogue as spreadsheets whenever you like.
- Capture packages are a documented format: a manifest, a spreadsheet and the original photos in one zip.
- A documented intake API lets your own tools send new items straight to your library’s inbox.
- Before the first library goes live we will publish our data processing agreement and the list of companies we use to run Gizzago.
We are opening Gizzago to a few libraries at a time.
Tell us about your library and we will be in touch about joining early and moving your catalogue across.