I was reading a post by Shiela at Book Journey and it made me realize that I haven’t used my blog to give my library (and all libraries) enough love. That being said, I want to declare publicly that
I LOVE MY LIBRARY!
It hasn’t been said enough on this site. I know that as a Friends Board Member, I’m biased, but I think libraries are a great resource and I want to give a shout out to my local library and the incredible people who work there. So yay Farmington Community Library and thank you for all you do!
There are a lot of services my library has that I use at least once a month. I’m highlighting them here because if there’s anything on this list you would like to see at your library, I’d be happy to discuss it and I encourage you to ask for it locally.
- Organized book club meetings. I think it’s obvious why this is a favorite, but I wanted to clarify that two of my book clubs are run by library personnel and I think it’s incredibly helpful to have a staff member running the group because it gives some direction and a group leader. This also leads to my second point:
- Sets of Book Club Books. I’ve seen it done other ways, but we call it Books To Go. Basically, you can check out 10-15 copies of a single book along with a folder full of discussion questions which allows patrons to run their own book clubs without the burden of purchasing the book. I love this option and I wish it was utilized more!
- eBook and eAudiobook collections. I love this so much. I can check out digital material right from my phone and it returns itself automatically when it’s due. So. Awesome.
- Writers’ Group. One of our librarians finally got a monthly writers group off of the ground and it’s be amazing to connect with fellow writers and talk about craft and encourage each other. I’ll put as a sub-tick here that they’ve run NaNoWriMo write-ins the past two years as well.
- Author Events. My library takes part in several events each year that bring authors to the local area. I’ve been able to meet Thrity Umrigar, Chris Bohjalian, and Seve Luxenberg through these programs and I’m excited to see where it goes in the future!
- Free WiFi. When I first moved to the area, I didn’t have internet at my apartment. When I decided to get a new job, I had to take my laptop to the library and use their internet to do my job search. I’ll be forever grateful to the library for this because I’ve found a job I really like.
There are also a ton of other services they offer that I don’t take advantage of, but I don’t want to diminish how valuable they are as a resource.
- After-school resources for the middle school across the street
- ESL programs
- Computer literacy classes
- Children’s programs
- Genealogy resources
- Movie nights for families
- And many many more!
Reader, I hope you’re fortunate to be near your local library and I hope even more that you take advantage of these resources! A library is for more than books; it’s for community and lifelong learning.
Do you love your library as much as I do? What resources are the most valuable to you?
While I have your attention, what do you think about joining an on-line book club? I’ll be hosting the third round of Read-Along With Me and we’re picking our book now. Please vote and send me an email to let me know you’re interested!
Until next time, write on.
You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!
Taking On a World of Words 
Having a one year old and very little money, I am so indebted to my library for the children’s programs. In the past year, my daughter’s “read” almost 200 different books at no cost to me and attends weekly story and play times instead of expensive “music classes” (where I am told infants basically hit drums, if you are lucky, because infants are not really that skilled when it comes to, well, much…)
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s so great! I know my library has extensive children’s programs. If I have little ones of my own one day, I hope to utilize library services as you have.
LikeLiked by 1 person
For your #2 we have that as well, we call it book club in a bag. It is 10 copies of the same book. One of my goals for this year is to have each of these bags contain a sheet of ideas to enhance your meeting – perhaps book club questions, ideas for food and drinks to serve that go along with the theme of the book, as well as any bonus things to do as a group. For instance, our book club read The Secret Life of Bees this past summer and we tried peanuts in coke as that was a thing in the book 🙂
Glad you are joining in the challenge!
LikeLike
I think that’s a great idea! I think it might be advantageous to add a sheet of paper with ‘Other questions that helped our discussion’ that could be included for future groups. Discussion guides can only go so far and I think sometimes the questions my fellow book club members ask are better than the ones in the packet!
LikeLike