Libraries today are not like they used to be, they are so much more! Libraries provide you and other community members with materials and services that will help in finding a job or learning a new skill, will entertain you, will take you places you’ve never been, or introduce you to a friend. And all you need is a library card, which is free!
Neill Public Library has computers available for public use in searching and applying for a job. We have offered classes in computer instruction, resume writing and other necessary business skills. The Microsoft Image Academy offers courses from basic digital literacy to advanced coding, all of which is free. We also have the Great Courses collection, which teaches subjects from math to music and food to philosophy and everything in between. Want to learn a new language, or English as a second language? We have the materials to assist you with that, including our Mango Languages database, and ESL Conversation Club.
For your entertainment we have thousands of DVD’s for you to enjoy, not to mention books on CD and fiction and non-fiction books for both youth and adults. Open any one of these items and it will take you to places you’ve never been. Take a walk through the non-fiction 910-919.97 and you can travel anywhere in the world with guide books and other true accounts of life in the world. Take a walk through the fiction S and you can travel to “Space, the final frontier” as any Trekkie would know. You can also travel to Narnia with C.S. Lewis, or Middle Earth with J.R.R. Tolkien, and so many more places you can only imagine.
If you grew up in a rural area where your closest neighbors were 5 miles away and the only time you saw them were in school or at church on Sundays, or like me, near a military base where families received orders every three or four years and packed up and moved on to the next post, then you know how hard it was to make and keep friends. But if you have books, or access to the library then you will always have a friend.
Recently someone asked me, “If you could be best friends with any fictional character, who would it be?” That was easy. “Anne Shirley!”, I said. For those of you who don’t know who Anne Shirley is, she is the heroine of the Anne of Greene Gables series by Lucy Maude Montgomery. Anne was plucky and imaginative and got into all kinds of adventurous trouble. She was a bosom friend. The kind of friend that was loyal and I could carry with me no matter where I went. For my son when he was a little boy, that friend was Little Critter from the stories by Mercer Meyer. And for my daughter that friend was Clary Fray, of the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. So who is your book best friend?
Libraries open the door to a world of opportunities for you, and the staff at Neill Public Library is happy to be of service. So open the door of YOUR library and see where it takes you!
Lori C. Lewis
Administrative Assistant
Neill Public Library
No comments:
Post a Comment