Hockey Mom Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 For the past few years I've read the numerous posts from parents stating how terrible their public library was. I always assumed it was due to the fact that most of the parents who post here are more voracious with their reading habits, and had higher expectations than "Joe Q Public". We recently moved from Southwest Florida to Central Florida. We are in a suburb (I think?), and for the most part, I love it here. It's peaceful. The people here are incredibly friendly. We saw wild turkeys in our back yard yesterday! I was excited to see that our public library was pretty close to us, and (bonus!) very close to a drive-thru Dunkin Donuts...hello iced coffee!! :) And then we went inside the library. And my heart sunk. I faked my enthusiasm for the place as I signed up for our new library cards. I was encouraging as my boys struggled to find ONE book for their research project (subjects: hound dog breeds, and sycamore trees). We left with a Spiderman comic collection book, and a book on Beagles (don't ask). All of us feeling deflated (ok, maybe it was just me that felt disappointed). Our new library here is awful. I have been spoiled. I was wrong. I get it now. I see that there are two other branches in our county. I'm going to check them out over the next few weeks. In the meantime, thank God for Amazon Prime. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Is your library part of a system where you can order books and have them delivered to the library? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hockey Mom Posted February 14, 2013 Author Share Posted February 14, 2013 I believe that it is! I had completely forgotten about that option! :) Again...spoiled library brat here. Never had to do that at our "old" library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truscifi Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I live in a rural county in Central FL. ILL (inter library loan) is my friend. We get the vast majority of our reading material that way during the summer. During the school year we are lucky enough to have access to the library at our local elementary school, which has a much better selection of books for ds than our public library does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incognito Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Interlibrary loan is amazing. You won't want to go back to looking on shelves when you have had a good taste of it! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Interlibrary loan is amazing. You won't want to go back to looking on shelves when you have had a good taste of it! :) When my kids were 2 and 5, I only got books that were from ILL! Now that they are older, we go to the library and browse the shelves again. Also, having moved about a billion times in the last 20 years, and having been a library patron in many different states, there are huge differences between branches within a city and between libraries in different cities. Our local library in Los Angeles was pretty sad, but the main library was amazing, several floors, all kinds of historical phonics books on microfilm... (We did a lot of ILL from our LA library, the main library and others did have a lot of good books.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca VA Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 What's amazing is how quick librarians are to toss out or sell books that are more than a few years old. WHY?? The older ones are usually so much better, and it's not like they don't have room for them! Most libraries have rows of empty or part-empty shelves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onceuponatime Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Is your library part of a system where you can order books and have them delivered to the library? This. We live in a rural county with a truly dismal local library in our town. However, the entire system has 7 small libraries which trade books and have a bookmobile. So we do all our "browsing" online and request books to be delivered to our local branch. We also got library cards in a big city about 45 minutes away and we go there about once a month for our library fix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProudGrandma Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 our library is not the best either...and either is the one that is about 15 miles away....both charge for ILL....a REALLY good one is about 45 miles away, but you can't renew books over the phone or by internet, and we don't get to the town every 2 weeks. THere is one about 45 miles a different direction, they will let me check books out for a month, I can renew by email, they have LOTS of great books...but 45 miles (one way) is a lot. So, I know your pain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
windmillmarie Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I feel the same way. Our current library is terrible and also charges for ILL, so we'd be spending $$$ on top of things. With one of my DH's big sticking points about homeschooling being $$, having to also pay for ILL is a big deal to him when the library is also devoid of actual books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Word Nerd Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I still miss the library where we used to live. However, I like the little community library where we live now, which unlike large libraries still has a lot of older, out-of-print treasures, especially in the children's section. I also use ILL and a bigger library in a nearby town regularly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen in NY Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I wonder if it would be worth paying to subscribe to another library --- like NY public library --- for the sake of having access to their e-book collection? For the last couple of years our library has made many books available via e-loan --- a 3 week loan period plus renewal option. I have never compared them, but I imagine that NYPub would have many more books than our county system. I think I might investigate it myself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sassenach Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 If you're close to Orange County, it might be worth it to take a drive in. Lake county libraries stunk, but I liked OC alright. However, I now live in an area that has a superb library system. Nothing I ever saw in FL stood a chance to this. So if you are used to something like what I have now, I can see how it would very hard to go back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down_the_Rabbit_Hole Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I will fight and I will scream and I will cry if we ever leave this city and their library system. The city is known as being in the top grouping of literary cities so you can imagine their public library. Not having a usable library is the pits. Hope you can use ILL with more book friendly libraries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plansrme Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I get it. I live in a suburb of Atlanta, and a couple of years ago we checked the online catalog for Gone With the Wind. ONE copy in the entire county system. Really, people? Atlanta! This is one of the big reasons that I refer to Amazon as my BFF--it is easier to just buy the book than to track it down in our library system. Unless I want to assign the latest vampire romance, in which case they have dozens of copies. Terri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kewb Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 I can not imagine living somewhere with a lousy library. I have always been fortunate to live where there are great libraries. Although my town has started waging war on its library. Very sad-cutting hours, shrinking the budget to buy new books, etc. It pains me when people do not see the value in the library. Even with all that is going on my librarians rock. Our children's librarians are fantastic as is the teen advisor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lisbeth Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 *sigh* All of this library talk is making me miss libraries. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critterfixer Posted February 14, 2013 Share Posted February 14, 2013 Ours isn't that great, but I'm fortunate to be able to make a trip to the state capital every few weeks and use the main library for the state. But we go to our local library weekly, despite not always getting everything we want. I figure it is a way to show support and use for the libary. I was also reminded by the libarians the other day that they take donations of books and DVD's and audiobooks. I'm afraid that with the cuts that are being made to the libary system a lot of individuals will need to help when it comes to stocking the shelves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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