I visit my library every Wednesday to upload videos my church sends to India. A video that takes hours to upload from my home computer takes only 1-2 minutes to upload from the library’s system.
That’s just one of the amazing resources of my local library. I live in a town of around 76,000 people. Not large—though it’s all relative, especially if you’ve lived in a town less than 10K all your life.
The library has always been a go-to place for me. For anyone born pre-computer revolution, the library was a primary resource for research and fun reading material. When I think about the library, I mostly think books. But today’s libraries offer so much more, way above and beyond books, CDs, and DVDs.
My library offers classes, both educational and fun, on a monthly basis. I’ve attended many of them. The librarian-teacher, Bridgid, and I have gotten acquainted, and I’m on her list of teaching resources for classes on indie-publishing and writing.
This past Wednesday I asked her if she was going to do a class on advanced Excel, and we got to talking about classes. She mentioned the library’s online classes.
Whoa! The library has online classes?
All this time, I’ve been purchasing classes from websites like Skillshare and Udemy, and I could have gotten similar training for free from the library!
Bridgid went to the computer and showed me where to find them on the library website and dove further into all that’s available, including earning certificates or simply auditing the class.
This has opened a whole new world to me. I love learning, and I’ve spent my adulthood learning through reading books, watching videos, and paying for classes. When I find something like this, free learning, I’m ecstatic. As an entrepreneur, I need to know how to manage finances, how to improve my business profits, how to market, and so much more.
As a writer, I constantly seek to improve my writing skills.
And I have fun things, like drawing and crocheting, that I’d like to learn how to do better. Now a whole new avenue of free teaching is available to me.
When I come up short on research, I talk to the reference desk librarians. They always have great suggestions—among the stacks, online, and locally—and have gotten me out of some tight jams with their knowledge.
I saved over $3,000 last year by borrowing their books and DVDs. How do I know that? That information is included on the date-due slip. I most certainly couldn’t have purchased all those items.
Bridgid has recently helped me download the library ebook app to my Kindle Firebook so I can start borrowing ebooks.
Your library has a plethora of resources available to you—all for free. Mine those resources and make them work to your advantage.
Thank you, Rolling Hills Consolidated Library of St. Joseph, MO, for all you make available to me and for all the help you give me along the way. Now that I think about it, the librarian was the first friend I made when I moved to St. Joe 15 years ago.