With school starting and cool weather (hopefully) not far behind, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind our patrons of some of the non-traditional items we have at ICL as well as some of the reasoning behind them. We have recently developed the “Library of Things” at ICL. Take a look at the list of items in this collection on the library’s website. Some of the things we have are more common to libraries everywhere; Kindles, laptops, and hotspots. Others you may find more surprising; a photobox, microscope and Legos are among the less traditional types of items. We developed the Library of Things to meet a need we saw for items that most people don’t want to invest in for limited use. Many of these items were donated to the library and we kept them and catalogued them for checkout.
Other items such as our playaway kits and Wonderbooks were purchased to help youth in our community with reading skills. These backpacks allow kids to listen to a book and to follow along in the print book. We have had many parents tell us stories of how these backpacks helped their children, especially those with reading difficulties such as dyslexia to start to enjoy books. It is our goal to help everyone experience the delight of a good story, the escape found in a tale well told. Having a learning difficulty shouldn’t keep anyone from enjoying books and stories.
In keeping with the philosophy of lifelong learning, we also have Great Courses DVDs and their accompanying books. With a subject list from cooking and gardening to history, religion and health, there is truly something for everyone with Great Courses. We purchased these as we recognized the difficulty some folks have in getting to programs. These can be viewed as one has time, energy, and interest.
Many people don’t find out about the items we have and the services we offer until they have a specific need for an item. A quick phone call to the library will tell you if we have something you might need, but also will let us know about things that would be helpful to have here at the library.
Lastly, we have folks on staff with expertise in a variety of skills. We have two sewing machines available for patron use and staff to help you get started. Recently we’ve had a patron learning to use her new drone, a program using our new eight-inch telescope (coming up on Oct. 1) and a class in genealogy. There truly is something for everyone right here in Ignacio.