National Library Week & School Library Month

 “Libraries show us anything is possible by encouraging a love of learning, discovery, and exploration.” –Natalie Portman, 2021 National Library Week Honorary Chair

April 4-10 is National Library Week. I encourage everyone in Southern Boone County to take advantage of the amazing libraries located right here in our own backyard. According to the American Library Association (ALA), there are over 116,000 libraries in the United States. Five of them can be found in Ashland.

The Southern Boone County Public Library, a branch of the Daniel Boone Regional Library, is an asset that makes Ashland the envy of small towns everywhere. If you haven’t been inside to “check out” all that our public library has to offer, then this would be a great week to do so. With a decrease in Covid-19 cases, the library is open to visitors once again. Hours of operation at the Ashland branch are: Monday-Thursday, 10:00am-6:00pm; Friday, 10:00am-5:00pm; Saturday, 10:00am-2:00pm; Closed Sundays. 

Library patrons are limited to one-hour visits, required to wear masks, and must maintain a distance of six feet from others. For patrons who would prefer to reserve books online, curbside pickup is still available. 

In-person group activities and programs are still temporarily suspended, but there are many digital resources available to patrons such as online learning, audiobooks, eBooks, and streaming services.

 

Although I prefer reading good old-fashioned books, the kind that are printed on paper with pages that I can feel and smell, I did recently download Libby, a free eBook app for smartphones and other devices that enables patrons to borrow digital materials from their local library. The process could not have been easier. Downloading only took a couple of minutes. Once I opened the app, a prompt asked for permission to find my local library through which I would be checking-out materials. I clicked yes, entered my library card number when asked, andthen I was instantly ready to browse DBRL’s 59,000 currently-available digital offerings.

 

Libby users can search for books by categories such as new, popular, random, kids, teens, mystery & thriller, and business, or by choosing from over 150 different subjects. In addition to books, thousands of magazines and audiobooks can also be borrowed. With Libby—and the public library—the world is at your fingertips without ever having to leave home.

In addition to the Libby app, our public library offers a host of other free digital services such as Freegal, Hoopla, Kanopy, OverDrive, and RBdigital for music downloading, streaming TV shows and movies, and downloading audiobooks and eBooks. As the pandemic situation improves, in-person services such as Bookmobile visits, meeting rooms, test proctoring, library tours, field trips, and children’s story time programs will once again be offered, too.

Seriously, if you don’t have a library card yet, go get one this week. It’s easy, and it’s free for residents of Boone or Callaway Counties. (Actually, your tax dollars support library operations, so you might as well get your money’s worth.) Click on DBRL.org for instructions on how to sign up for a card online, by mail, or in person. And while you’re at it, sign your kids up for cards of their own. A library card is one of the most empowering gifts a child can ever receive.

Speaking of children, the kids in Southern Boone County have four excellent libraries available to them that their parents don’t have access to. The primary, elementary, middle, and high schools each have sizable collections of books and magazines as well as computer labs/media centers. More importantly, they have dedicated, professional librarians/media specialists helping students get the most from their libraries. Their jobs have been made even more demanding with the need for students to each have their own electronic device in case of a switch to virtual learning. The school librarians in Southern Boone County all deserve a huge raise and a mountain of praise for the job they have done during the pandemic.

I have subbed as a primary school librarian many times, and I can tell you that it is a tremendously demanding (and rewarding) profession. Imagine teaching 450 kids ages 5-8 how to make a username and password for their new electronic devices, teaching them how to use various apps on those devices, teaching them how to use a desktop computer, teaching them how to do a research report, teaching them how to type, edit, and print their reports, teaching them the difference between fiction and non-fiction books, teaching them how to check-out books, and finding the time to read to them as often as possible so that they will fall in love with reading and with learning about their world. 

April is recognized by the ALA as School Library Month, but I would like to amend that to “School Librarian Month.” If you get a chance, please say thank you to any or all of Southern Boone’s school librarians for the great and important work they are doing. As educators go, they are often overlooked and underappreciated, but they deserve to be recognized for all that they do for our kids. 

If you really want to help a school librarian, make sure to let the school board and administrators know that if our librarians are going to do the work of two or three people, they should get paid as much as two or three people—or we should hire two or three people to work at each library/media center.

Let’s all celebrate National Library Week and School Library Month by utilizing the great resources our libraries offer and by recognizing the dedicated librarians who make it all possible.