This article was originally written in three parts and published in The Wyoming News Chronicle in the spring of 2023. Andrew Carnegie, born in Scotland in 1835, emigrated with his parents to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was twelve years old. His life is an almost unbelievable rags-to-riches story. He went from working as a bobbin…
Category: Librarian
Show Notes: Our Librarian Life – September
A brand new podcast series for librarians by librarians. Our Librarian Life is a monthly chat between private lending librarians about the lives our private lending libraries.
Emma Filbrun’s New Zealand Library
We’re open when we’re home. Very few people use it, as I said, so it’s no problem. I mail books to people who request them, after they pay for the postage. Eventually, if the books haven’t come back, I ask for them back. I do not charge fees, other than the postage fee.
Books by Mail and Me
We live in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I have owned more books than the tiny local public library for at least two decades. We rapidly outgrew their collection before the oldest of our six children turned ten. Because our town’s library service was so limited for so many years, we qualified for the state library’s Books by Mail program, as did the majority of smaller towns in the state. We have borrowed many hundreds of books this way. Because the Maine State Library is taxpayer funded, there was no fee for this service IF your town met the qualifications. If the town was not on the list, the service was not available at all.
How do you make your own dust jacket or paper book cover for a book that doesn’t have a book jacket?
To make your own book jacket that will cover, beautify, and protect a jacket-less book, try the following steps.
With limited shelf space, how do I decide which books to collect and keep?
Even if it is easily found elsewhere, like the public library, is it one that someone in my family or some of my library patrons will love and want easy, frequent access to? If that’s the case, then it’s worth shelf space to me.
How and why do librarians cover their dust jackets with plastic?
Some people find book jackets, aka dust jackets or dust covers, annoying, but most librarians want to keep and protect these covers on the books that have them for several reasons.
Kristi Stansfield’s Library Story
A few years ago, probably in self-defense, my husband installed a 12 ’x 26’ building next to our house, finished the walls, and provided electricity for the lending library. Life intervened with some unforeseen events, and I’m still setting up the library with a goal of it being officially open to memberships in 2024.
Mary Schubert’s Library Journey
Even before I was introduced to Charlotte Mason’s philosophy, I knew the greater value of narration versus multiple choice. During the summer months, I turned my children loose to browse the shelves of our public library for summer reading, to find whatever interested them versus what they were “told” to read because they could be quizzed on it. To this day, I still believe the most successful reading program is both reading to your child from conception and finding books that they are interested in reading.
Amanda Smith, The Community Hub
My goal is to be a complete alternative to the public library by offering a variety of Christian creation based resources including books, audiobooks, dvd, cd, games, and homeschool curriculum. In the future I’d like to add homeschool resources such as a laminator, comb binder, and science equipment like telescopes and microscopes. Starting soon I’d also like to add programs such as story times, summer reading programs, and book clubs. I want to have all of the resources that my family used at the public library. I feel that God has called me to run this library and that this is my mission field.
Where do I find affordable living books to add to my library?
Don’t get in a hurry to grow your library. Try some of the above techniques and places for finding good books, and add the books, a few at a time, to your library for the benefit of your own family and the families of your library patrons or future patrons. Just be patient and diligent as God gives the increase.
How do I begin to acquire more books for my library?
You may have been collecting books for a long time before you’re ready to open a lending library. If so, you may indeed know almost all of the tricks of the trade. But just maybe there are a few ideas for finding good, true, and beautiful books that you didn’t know.
Librarian Notices: Sherry Early’s Library Journey
With no grandchildren at the time, I just couldn’t see the books sitting on shelves or in boxes with no one to read them and love them… As the children moved out, the books moved in.
Librarian Notices: The LLF Library in Dallas, Texas
If you had known mom, you would know she would be mortified by us putting her name on this project, and we did refrain from calling it Little Lisa’s Library or something cute like that. But, sorry mom, we are doing all this because of you.