by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
Next week, libraries in schools, on campuses, and in
communities around the United States will be celebrating National LibraryWeek. This year’s theme is “Communities
matter @ your library”. Caroline Kennedy
is the honorary chair.
Libraries today are more than repositories for books. They are important community centers where
people gather, study, work, and find the information and resources that they
need.
Librarians work with elected officials, teachers, students,
small business owners, and other members of the public to find out what the
community’s needs are and meet them.
Whether offering programs for early literacy, internet access for job
seekers, materials for English-language learners, or assistance with e-books,
librarians listen to the community they serve and respond to its needs.
The Litchfield Public Library serves Litchfield and all of
Meeker County by providing story times for teaching pre-literacy skills to young
children and their parents; book clubs for encouraging reading and discussion among
older children, teens, and adults; and 4-H-led educational activities for
elementary students. The library’s
knitting and gaming groups bring together groups of people interested in
particular hobbies. The library staff
helps people of all ages find information they need and locate books, movies,
and music they want to find.
Our local library collection includes board books for
babies, picture books, children’s chapter books, informational books for kids,
young adult novels for teens, and a wide range of fiction and nonfiction books
for adults, from the latest bestselling novel to cookbooks, health, and
politics. The library also offers more
than print books: our collection includes audiobooks on CD and cassette,
downloadable e-books and audiobooks, popular movies and documentaries on DVD
and VHS, music CDs, newspapers, magazines and e-magazines. Through an online database called America’s
News, our library provides a way to search the past ten years of the Litchfield
Independent Review and years of other newspapers from throughout the country.
With the cooperative efforts of libraries around the state
of Minnesota, a library card can give everyone access to a vast variety of
books and other materials that their local libraries could never hold. The Litchfield Library brings in three
deliveries a week of items that customers order from other libraries in
Pioneerland Library System and from libraries all around the state. Library staff provides one-on-one help in
placing these orders to those who need it, or customers can use the library
website to request materials themselves.
Our library has 17 computers that the public can use to
create a resume, type a letter, send an email, or use the internet to do all of
the things that have to be done online today.
Local residents who don’t have high-speed internet access at home, or
even a computer, use the library computers to do homework, banking, shopping,
research, job hunting, and social networking.
Others come in with laptops and mobile devices to use the library’s WiFi
to work, study, and access the internet.
Service to the community has always been the focus of the
library. While this has never changed,
libraries have evolved in how they provide for the needs of their
communities. Visit our website at
litchlibrary.blogspot.com to learn more about what the library can do for you.
