The Library: A Year-Round Gift to the Community
December 23, 2011 —
If we were to put all the services of the Springfield-Greene County Library District under your Christmas tree … well, they wouldn’t fit.
Thanks to the support of Greene County property tax payers, grants and gifts, the Library provides an abundance of things to do and experience. Here are some of the ways your support comes back as gifts for the whole community.
- Exercise buddy – Listen to a book while you’re on the trail or treadmill with a Playaway. It’s a small, easy-to-use device like an MP3 player already loaded with a book. Check one out for three weeks; you provide the ear buds or headphones and one AAA battery.
- Help for visual challenges – There are audiobooks, descriptive DVDs and videos, and closed-captioned videos and DVDs for the hearing impaired. In addition, Missourians may use the free services of the Wolfner Library in Jefferson City. Materials are mailed to library patrons’ homes, postage paid. The collection includes fiction and nonfiction audio and braille books for all ages and more than 70 magazine subscriptions. Wolfner Library loans playback machines to those using audio books. To apply or for details, call toll-free 800-392-2614, or 573-751-8720, or email wolfner@sos.mo.gov, or visit www.sos.mo.gov/wolfner/
- Music for the road or romance – There are more than 23,500 music CDs.
- Entertainment for snuggle weather – We’ve got more than 36,000 movies and 381,000-plus books.
- Entertain a child or grandchild – Kidspace at thelibrary.org/kids has a homework station, links to online games, brain teasers, math challenges and the TumbleBookLibrary, an online collection of animated, talking picture books.
- Free downloads – The Library has a vast collection of downloadable e-books, e-audiobooks and e-videos.
- Get it first – Join the Bestsellers Club for free. We’ll automatically place holds for you on new releases by any of the authors you choose from our list. Sign up at any library branch.
- Computer classes – Our computer instructors offer free, small classes for adults of all skill levels at the Edge Community Technology Center in the Midtown Carnegie Branch Library and at eight branches through the Edge Mobile Classes.
- Book deliveries –Walking Books delivers to patrons who cannot easily travel to the Library due to chronic physical limitations. For details call 616-0580.
Those just scratch the surface. We invite you to learn more at thelibrary.org.