Two great shout-outs for Seattle Public Library at the #IFBC

Are you as scared as I am that our kids won’t have libraries one day?  Every time I buy books on Amazon, I make sure I use the “smile” site at www.smile.amazon.com instead of just regular Amazon.com so the company can give a percentage of my purchase back to non-profits and I choose Seattle Public library to benefit so I can help ensure we have them FOREVER.

We need libraries.  So many of my childhood memories depend on them. I remember going to my neighborhood library as a young child with my dad to get books and reading them together and I loved walking to and from the library from my house when I was older because it made me feel so fiercely independent.  I remember sneaking through the haunted stacks of our main campus library with friends as an Arts student in college and I never would have imagined people would one day start choosing electronics over paper-bound books!  I still want library memories for my children too-even though they will have a different interaction than I had with libraries in their lifetime.  Instead of going through the card catalog or the microfiche they can get museum passes and read books online with Bookflix with their library cards.  They can learn languages and read Encylopedias from home.

At the International Food Bloggers Conference I went to in Seattle this weekend, I learned that other people in my neighborhood love our library too!

Kathleen Flinn from Cookfearless gave a talk on some journalistic aspects of blogging and mentioned the Ask a Librarian feature that Seattle Public Libraries has.  If you have ANY questions, they can help you.  And it’s absolutely free!

And in another workshop a wonderful lady I met (I wish I’d asked for your business card but I know you’re in Seattle!) told me I can read digital copies of my favorite magazines for free with my library card AND I can even learn to understand web coding and other computer skills via video instruction from a program called Lynda with my library access too!

So this week I will make a point to visit my Seattle Library, even if it’s just in a virtual way.  (But have you been to the Seattle Library?  It has the most spectacular glass windows! You need to see it if you’re in the area!) We are so lucky to have these amazing resources and they are the type of resources that we won’t realize how valuable they are until they disappear.

Do you love your library? And even if you don’t frequent it often, have you checked out the online programs that they offer?

(PS. I just read An Unlikely Event from Judy Blume, one of my favorite childhood authors and I don’t really like airplane books but it was an entertaining read and it was neat catching up with a writer I loved growing up and now I’m looking for my next book.  Do you have something you’re reading that I might like?)

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)