More Than Books
Libraries offer more than books. We have audios, DVDs, CDs, newspapers, magazines, a fax machine, public computers, printers and copiers, scanners, tomato plants, code-a-pillars, activity kits, magnetic building blocks, a farmers’ market, free paperbacks, etc. Tomato plants? Code-a-pillars? What? A lot of these things I have mentioned before, but there are some new things happening, and some things have come back, maybe a little different than they were before.
Yep, our community garden is up and growing. With 12, 5-gallon pickle buckets, donated from Pioneer and Bee’s Knees we now have our container gardens going. These containers will eventually be housed where our previous beds are, but not until the pavilion is up and ready. The goal is to provide free, fresh veggies to our patrons, available to pick on your own, or ready for pick-up at the circulation desk.
For the last few years we have had activity kits available for in-library use only. Of course these items were removed during COVID, but this month they are back. Along with the in-library use activity kits, we have added some new kits that can be checked out for home use (All the activity kits are cleaned after use). Code-a-pillars and magnetic block kits are now available for regular checkout. Code-a-pillars, introduce young kids to the underlying concepts behind coding and computer programming, but more than that they are just fun to play with, trust me, Shirley and Brittany had a wonderful time getting them prepped for checkout. Magnetic blocks are equally fun, seriously, building is always great, but with the help of magnets to hold everything together, it is a whole new level of entertainment and learning.
The Farmers’ Market is back. We started on May 1st and plan on having weekly markets throughout the season. Keep in mind, vendors and customers are what run the market, we cannot have one with the other, so spread the news. There is no charge for the vendors, we only require that you produce what you sell.
Free paperbacks, yep, mass market to be exact. We always have a book sale going on the table by the book drop, items are priced at 50 cents apiece, usually if mass market books were donated, we bundled them, 5 for 50 cents. Now we have a whole carousal of them, for free! A little “free” library within the big “free” library. This is something that has been on my list for some time, then a few weeks back, Daniel Boone Regional Library had a free carousal, and it only had to picked up, you guessed it, John and his truck took a trip to Columbia with me.
Libraries really are so much more than books; they are community centers. They are places to learn, to be entertained, to conduct business, to check out cool educational toys, to see how green the director’s thumb is, to support local gardeners and crafters, and the list continually grows.
“Libraries are the last safe, free, truly public space where people from all walks of life may encounter each other,” – Philipp Schmidt.
Upcoming Events: 5/19 Story Time (masks required for adults) at 10am, 5/19 OUR Story Time at the City Park at 4pm, 5/22 Farmers’ Market from 9am-12pm, 5/24 MOCO Warriors Support Group at 6:30pm