I’ve had an on and off relationship with libraries, but I’ve been lucky to live near some wonderful ones. They’ve been biking destinations more than once, they’ve provided me with endless book fodder when I had the time to read, and they’ve offered jewels for research projects that I couldn’t otherwise afford.
Lately, I’ve been supporting my favorite authors by buying their books, which means I have more books to read than I can manage, not to mention the review titles which used to be hard to get but I’ve either crossed some invisible line in the number of reviews or publishers like my take because I’m getting everything I think might be interesting. Because of that, it’s been a while since I’ve been to my library, a journey that starts with a trip to the site to reserve the specific book I want.
Wow has the world changed.
People think of libraries as staid old building clinging to the times when the Encyclopedia Britannica held sway over access to broad knowledge. A quick glimpse at the library website throws those ideas out the window.
Online catalog search is only the tip of the iceberg. You can put things on hold, manage your checkouts, make wishlists, download audio and ebooks, and a ton of other features I’m not even sure I understand.
Libraries are doing an excellent job staying relevant and making sure each generation of readers has access to a wide variety of choices.
So, have you been to your library lately?
Me, I headed over there as soon as they sent me an email that the book I wanted had arrived (it was at a different branch).
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Oh, I’m probably at the library most weeks. Some weeks I renew online rather than going in, but it varies. We were there on Friday, and we’ll be going back on Wednesday (game due that can’t be renewed again). We have an entire table filled with books that we’ve checked out from the library — and yes, we check out audiobooks and e-books and games as well.
Couldn’t live without it!
We never had much success with the games checkout when the boys were little, but we used to get all sorts of books :).
Well, these aren’t the toys from the children’s section. Our library has Wii, PS3, and XBox games. My son likes grabbing the Lego Batman, and we’ve had out a Tomb Raider game before. Husband decided he didn’t like Assassin’s Creed after we checked that out (hey! money saved!), but Arkham City was a big hit.
Right. But when our boys were little, we didn’t have any gaming machines so checking out a game meant installing the disks, dealing with compatibility issues, etc. Hence the never much success :). Hmm, hadn’t thought about that for checking out new games on the game machines. Jacob never wants to buy them when they’re brand new anyway because they’re so expensive. Thanks for the tip. I’ll pass it along.