Your Library Connection

Libraries of Today and Tomorrow

Download Camel Club by David Baldacci, read about library activities and updates on the director’s blog, reserve an MP3 player with one of your favorite artist’s music loaded on it, access local history using your home computer, ask a reference question with IM…all online.  All with the library’s website. 

What???  Let me briefly define the words/acronyms with which you may not be familiar:

Download – Some libraries offer audiobooks (like the books that you can check out and listen to on CD or cassette tape from the Independence library) as a download, or a transfer of data to your computer or your MP3 player. 

Blog – a blog is a weblog or a journal on the computer.  It is an easy way to post information and update it on a frequent basis on the web.  The posts are listed in reverse-chronological order so that the most recent updates are first. 

MP3 player – An MP3 file takes a sound sequence like a song or reading and compresses it into a small electronic file while maintaining good sound quality.  A player is usually small in size and allows you to listen to the files.

IM – Internet Messaging (you may know it as Instant Messenger or MSN Messenger) is the communication of two or more people online.  It allows the users to see messages instantly and respond immediately.  It is like a written phone conversation using your computer.

These are things you can do at many of the large public libraries across the United States.  Ann Arbor, Michigan; East Peoria, Illinois; and Huntington, New York, and other large public libraries offer many or all of these options.  Rochester, Minnesota; Des Moines and Iowa City also offer many of these services. 

When you say the word library, probably 95% of people think “books, books, and more books.”  Books are a huge part of the library and it looks like they have great staying power even amongst all the technological developments of today.  I’m so glad!!  But the world is changing and libraries are changing as well.  The Independence Public Library is moving towards being much more than a warehouse for books.  Right now we offer many cultural, recreational, and educational programs to the public.  We have a website, www.indylibrary.org, which is up-to-date and gives you all kinds of information about the services and events the library offers as well as links to great informational websites.  There are also two searchable databases we currently offer – one that allows searching of the materials that are available in the library and another which allows the user to search newspaper and periodical articles.  We have books that you can check out on CD or audio cassette, educational and recreational DVDs, and we will continue to look for other services that are beneficial to the community and are feasible for the library to implement (you guessed it, those that fit with the available time and money). 

What might be offered in the next few years at your local public library?  I’d be crazy to predict too much because there are new technologies coming out all the time.  If I could imagine, predict, or have the knowledge to create those new technologies I probably wouldn’t be writing this article!  Here are some IPL (Independence Public Library) plans that may not be so far out of reach…WiFi, reserving materials on the web, and checking out a book or music album on an MP3 player.  WiFi (short for wide fidelity) is a wireless local area network that allows the user to access the web without plugging your computer into a phone, DSL, or cable connection.  In other words, you could bring your notebook computer to the library and check websites and e-mail without plugging it in to a network connection.  We have the capability to allow you to search the library collection with a database (called WebCatalog) accessible from our website.  Right now you are not able to reserve materials online, but we hope that our software provider will make that feature available soon.  Getting into the arena of music…possibly with MP3 players and files, would be a wonderful addition to what we could offer to the public.  Offering those audio books in an MP3 format would be much less cumbersome…changing tapes or CDs to hear the next part of the book would be a thing of the past.  Oh, the possibilities!!!  “Being a librarian is like riding a bicycle.  If you stop pedaling and moving forward, you fall off.” –Dave Shumaker, MITRE Corporation

Library Tidbits:
February is Library Lover’s Month!  Thanks to all those library supporters out there!

Family Movie Night at the Middle School, sponsored by the Independence Public Library, the Independence PTO, and the Friends of the Independence Public Library, is on Friday, Feb. 10^th at 7 pm.  This event is free to the public.  Popcorn and drinks sell for 50 cents each.

Visit the library website www.indylibrary.org or call us at 334-2470 if you are interested in signing up for free February computer classes…Computer Basics, Excel Basics, Word Basics, and Internet Basics.  These are sponsored by Independence Light and Power, Telecommunications.

A Valentine’s quilt by Pam Murley, member of the Calico Cut-ups quilt guild, is on display at the library.  Make sure to stop in and see it during the month of February.

Home  Pictures  Donations  Services   Calendar of  Events  Web and Reference Resources   Kids' Resources  New Books and Materials   Online Catalog   Community Resources  Library Connections  Friends of the Library