@ Your Library
Hope your May has been sunny and bright! Even if you must turn to books to find sunshine! Books need to be a constant in life. Find what you like to read and spend time every day reading something that brings you joy. We only get to live once, live it joyfully, expanding our horizons with books and knowledge that fill us with the wonder of the world.
The library continues to build our Playaway and Wonderbook collections. Playaways are devices that allow you to listen to an audiobook without having another machine to play the disc or tape. The digital book is in a player about the size of a deck of cards and only needs headphones or an auxiliary cable to play in the car. Wonderbooks and the similar Vox books are picture and chapter books with the audio book attached, allowing kids to have a book read to them without an additional device needed. Digital books are great, but don’t come with the physical book allowing a child to see the words upon the page being read. This is a great option for summer and reading. I hope that the title options continue to grow with this format, but there are some wonderful titles available, just not always the bestsellers and most popular titles.
If you prefer digital titles, be sure and make use of both Libby and Hoopla. These apps are free for library card holders. Each works a little differently. Libby is a system wide app that provides e-books and audiobooks on a per copy license. Each copy of a digital item that has been purchased can be loaned to one patron at a time. This does lead to some long wait lists for popular titles. Arrowhead Library System is currently trying to purchase additional copies whenever the wait list ratio is more than 8 borrowers per copy.
Hoopla is available to International Falls Public Library patrons, and we do not select what is available. The e-books, comic books, audiobooks, music, tv shows and movies are all available based on the contract with the provider. Each title is always available so no waiting. However, the library limits you to eight items borrowed a month. Hoopla also does something called Bonus Borrows where they make some titles available to library patrons for free. If you have an account with Hoopla, you can get notified when they make certain titles available. Many patrons use both systems to keep themselves in books all month long.
Join us Monday, May 13th at 6pm for Barn Quilt Trails with Jay Grammond. Follow Jay around the state as he provides a sampling of the barn quilts available around the state. Learn about the trails and the quilts as they pay homage to heritage or interests. This program was funded in part or in whole by a grant from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural heritage Fund. Then stay and read quietly with the silent book club until 7:45 when we’ll share what we’re reading.