I think you were thinking of something like a county library in the United States, which deal primarily with mass-market paperbacks. That's not a great analogy. When you're talking about breaking expensive equipment (as in a maker space), the median user doesn't matter. The worst user matters. Books (at least mass-market books) are several orders of magnitude cheaper than expensive hardware.

Also the last interaction I had with a college library was being charged $200 to replace a textbook that had a cup of coffee dumped on it, so in my experience libraries aren't really model replacement-cost internalizers.

Libraries make you pay for damaging or losing books usually. I am generally of the privatized camp, where when you pay for something and it's yours you take good care of it, and if you do something to it you bear the full consequences. If you borrow, then it should be with the explicit agreement to return in original form. In fact put it in writing and have a contract made, take a picture of it. As now you are in the lending business... even if the price you are charing is $0. And if it comes back damaged and they are not willing to pay for it, or if they lose it, then don't lend to them anymore and remind them if they ever ask you as to why. Maybe you will lose friends, but then you should probably not be mixing business with pleasure.