This should be my last post for National Library Week unless I do a round up. I only did a cursory exploration of my library’s site (and I haven’t looked at my town library for this week).

I’ve already listed some items essential for research under media, but I thought I needed another post for more items that didn’t exactly fit under any other category.

In addition to information for all the items I listed before, my library’s website also has

• educator, parents, teen, and children’s pages
• a Genealogy page (as well as archives at the main library)
• a page of all sorts of Internet links
• a page listing sites with free Internet classes
• Treehouse accounts available to checkout
• a library newsletter
• a partnership with a self-publisher e-book site

I think I will put one more up because I can’t really group my last two lists together logically. This whole National Library Week series has been rather slip-shod, but it is supposed to be a starting point.

I’ve found various community events and library and reader support sections and activities listed on my library site including:

• Political gatherings
• Author meetings
• Children’s events
• Community events
• Artist meetings
• Book review blog
• Book discussion kits
• Book fund
• Library book sales that support the library
• Donating books to the library

Yeah, this is why I like scheduling. Because I usually don’t have the brains to do something on the spur of the moment, and I don’t have the energy/motivation when working. I got two posts in my series for National Library Week.

I looked at my calendar though, and I see there is another Library literary event later in the year, so hopefully, I can put more effort into that week . . . if I plan. I’m going to do a couple more quickie list posts even though the week ends today.

Anyhow, here are some community services I found my library offered:

• Immigrant services
• Bookmobiles for kids and adults
• Book mail and others services for those with disabilities
• On site computer classes
• Test prep classes
• A student/bus/library combination card
• Tax filing help
• Scholarships

I want to do a post a day for National Library Week, but that is a bit of a stretch which is why this is so late.

Everyone knows much of the media available at libraries, but some of the types of media and some of ways we can access these media can be overlooked or underutilized.

I found my public library system to be in some respects as useful or more useful than my University library in college. Some of the books I needed could be obtained there. A local newspaper’s historical editions was available digitally at the public library while at the University available only on microfilm.

I loved discovering my library’s “Suggest a Purchase” option (often that means when you suggest a book, you automatically have it reserved); even some of my “obscure” books were purchased.

I’ve loved re-discovering interlibrary loans (need to pick that up; my interlibrary loan list is growing!).

I just noticed my libraries eMagazine button, I think it might be new.

If your library has more types or more formats of the same types, please share!

Books:

• paper (with options to suggest a purchase and to request an interlibrary loan from libraries all across the nation!)
• eBooks
• audiobooks in three formats (C.D.’s, Playaways, and digital)

Newspapers:

• paper
• digital
• digitally scanned historical

Periodicals:

• journals
• online journal databases
• magazines
• eMagazines

Audio-visual

• movies on D.V.D.’s (mine has a FAR better selection than Netflix)
• (your library may have; mine doesn’t but maybe in the future) digital streaming through Kanopy
• music on C.D.’s
• digital music
• sheet music

Lectures

• D.V.D and C.D. courses (e.g. The Great Courses)
• links to tons of sites with free lectures

Modern Mrs. Darcy linked up to a literary holiday list which sent me off to find a more full list (here) which I used to fill out my calendar. I wanted to do some posts on this, and I’ve wanted to utilize my library system better; I’ve been slowly discovering more and more services, but this has only been recently even though I’ve had access to this library for ages. So, I’m going to do a series of posts on my library system.

My library history:

I grew up in an idyllic “small-town” city. The population when we left was between six to eight thousand (it is a little over eight now). I think we had three decent sized libraries in our library system, and we used two of these. We left right around when the library started switching to computers, I think, maybe? Anyway, these libraries had plenty of books for children, tweens, and young teens plus a nice interlibrary loan capacity. I wasn’t an adult when we used this system, so I don’t know how it would feel now.

We then moved to the suburbs of the largest city in our state for two years. This city is not in but is close to the top 20 most populous in the U.S. (although swallowing farms, suburbs, and small towns to increase city limits is an interesting way to increase size). We lived less than 10 minutes from two of the eighteen libraries in this system although we only used one then (I think there may have been a few less then, but there have been more in the past). This is a Carnegie library system (! I just found this out recently; so cool). I was still too young and limited (we really did not have much computer knowledge then) to fully appreciate everything this system had plus I was in my reading mental drama period.

Then we moved to our current location, a “city” of well under 2,000. This library system was a shock; one tiny, tiny library with a scarily small parking lot (lots of driving fear here) with no funds for many interlibrary loans; the library has recently massively increased in size although not in content. This is NOT the library I mention when talking of my library, but I do want to include it in this week, and I want to set a week or a month to see how much I can find to read there.

I live in a commuter county next to the city I used to live in. I work, visit, and shop in the outer suburbs of the city which takes 20-40 minutes depending on where I go, the route I take, etc. I’ve only ever driven downtown once in my entire life (although I’ve been more than once, but not often), and that took almost a decade of driving to accomplish (but I need to drive downtown at least a couple more times to get to the historic main library with all the archives and such! Maybe next year for library week?). I bring my pay-stub to show I pay taxes (because of work), so I can get a library card. If I didn’t work in the city, I could (and would) pay a fee. If you live outside a big city, I suggest you see if you have similar options.

I just like going over memories and trying to put everything in context. The public library system was a huge part of my childhood, especially since I was home-schooled.