My wife is a library administrator in (depending on how you want to look at it) a large town or a small city.
Some of the things the library offers people might not expect:
• Free 3D printing.
• Free large format printing.
• Free sewing machines.
• A ‘libary of things’ where you can check out things like tools or musical instruments.
• Tabletop RPGs you can take home or play there with people.
• A teen room with an XBox and a Playstation and a bunch of games, but adults are welcome too.
• eBooks and streaming audiobooks, movies and TV. My wife listens to audiobooks constantly and hasn’t paid for one in years.
You can also book a librarian to basically be your own personal researcher for a certain amount of time and they will even deliver books to you and pick them up later if you need them to.
Soon, a new branch will be opening. It will have a room with a lockable door and a signup sheet, one person allowed at a time. Inside will be a shower, a washer and a dryer, free to use.
By the way, if a library doesn’t have the item you want but another library has it, they can get it for you from that library.
Libraries are amazing.
I use my libary card to download and read free ebooks on my Kobo all the time. Absolutely love it.
I haven’t paid for an audiobook in years!
I’ve moved around in the last year and literally registered for library cards in two cities earlier this week thinking of this post. Nice to know it’s still making the rounds
The services like renting power tools is amazing, or free tickets to museums and stuff.
I loved the Last Week Tonight segment about it, and not just the taxidermy parts 😁
Hadn’t heard of that, thanks, I’ll check it out
The Los Angeles Public Library offers:
- Free Museums tickets
- Free Zoo tickets (LA city residence only)
- Free state park passes
- You can borrow laptop, tablet, or even portable a Wi-Fi hotspot
- Free education software (Mango and Linkedin Learning)
- Free Comics, Music, Magazines, and Movies
- Free and cheap 3D printing
Obviously not every library offers all this, but check in with your local branch, and you might be pleasantly surprised.
One of the “protect our children” protests in the UK yesterday involved burning down a brand new library because…reasons, I guess?
If you ever had any doubts about the right wing protests affecting the UK, remember they burned down a local community library for no fucking reason.
protect the children from learning!
Protect the children from finding out we suck
I mean, quite literally what book burnings are, yeah.
They provide services to ALL people. So tired of reading that only the poor use the library. My kids are always begging to be taken there to get books and do activities. We just used the color printer/copier at ours the other day and the first 3 copies were free. Libraries are an amazing community resource for EVERYONE.
Prefer to spend your time outdoors? I’m not sure about other states and countries, but in CA your library card can get you free entry to state parks!
You have to pay for State Parks in Cali? That’s absurd
There are states that don’t charge for state parks?
The more I learn about Cali’s laws and taxes the less I want to live there, which sucks because the landscape can be so beautiful
It’s weird how you want the beauty, but don’t seem to understand how it stays that way.
It’s maintenance. It’s user fees to fund maintenance.
You may think that’s socialist, but really it’s not. Proper socialism would be a portion of income tax being allocated toward funding a maintained park without added user fees for residents.
It’s usually cheaper overall for people using the park, but people who don’t use the park complain about their taxes being used to foot the bill; the same as they complain about paying for fire protection service they don’t use.
One use of the taxes is to preserve the beauty and make it available to everyone except where it’s too fragile.
A lot of the regulations exist to mitigate the evils caused by massive concentrations of humans, like air pollution.
But hey, you go ahead and stay where you are. That’ll keep a place open for another of the many people who move away, experience life in those other states, and then come home again.
