I try to go to the library every week. It gets me out of the house for an hour or two. The kids love going to put together puzzles, read the trashy fiction I forbid them to check out (anything Barbie, Disney, etc.) and in Gus's case, run around wildly pulling random books off the shelves. I love that my children enjoy books as much as I do. From any given trip we come home with a XL LL Bean canvas bag of 50 - 60 books!
Our local library is very small. They have a fantastic core collection, but because of space and budgets that don't have everything. Luckily our library is part of a two county cooperative library system! This system has almost every book I have ever wanted to read. The Internet makes requesting these books SO easy by simply accessing the online card catalog, typing in my account number and clicking a request button. The books arrive within in a day or two. I usually have a stack of 10-15 interlibrary loan books waiting for me behind the counter every week I go in.
I have found the proactive effort of requesting books to be time consuming, but highly beneficial. The following are the sources I mainly draw from:
(1) Sonlight - They have lists upon lists of great books to read. I know with confidence that any title (aside from the theology) is a good read.
(2) Barnes and Noble website - I LOVE the search features that this website offers, particularly the "Customers who bought this also bought" feature. Amazon is also nice, but I find my way around the BN website better. I like the B&N Recommends feature to find grown-up books for myself.
(3) Story of the World Activity Book - After every chapter we read several of the books suggested from both the fiction and non-fiction lists they have compiled. I usually enjoy reading these books more than the SOTW text itself.
(4) Friend recommendations - Anyone? Anyone?
I know that our family makes a lot of work for the librarians because of the extent to which we use interlibrary loan. Three or four times a year I bring the library ladies homemade cookies, a pound of coffee or a big bag of m&m's. It helps to be on their good sides. I believe that my library account has eluded many fines because of chocolate.
Next post: Library Strategy: OR and Post-Op
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I have never considered bribing my librarians with food. I am certain this is a good idea b/c we're very good about losing track of our library books once they're home.
How do you keep track of what's out and when it's due? I used to use Library Elf which was fantastic, but now you have to pay to use it. I suppose the cost might be less than some of the fines we've had...
I couldn't agree more, interlibrary loan and holding items has been awesome. We do many of our videos (Ron and I are old movie fans) this way too. No book suggestions for you though, My current reads are Wisconsin Garden Guide, The Vegie Gardener's BIBLE and Planting solutions for SHADE. Do you notice a theme?
Chocolate.... great idea.
hello... hapi blogging... have a nice day! just visiting here....
Post a Comment