Giving Thanks Challenge - The Library

Oh, the library.  What would we ever do without the library.  Our lives would sure be different.

We are truly blessed that we have access to a huge library system.  There are, I would guess, 15 to 20 branches through out the state so almost anywhere we go we can slip into the library to check out and return books. 

A service we use a lot is ordering books.  The whole library catalog is on line and I can order books at home so I don't have to go through the shelves to find them.  When we get to the library they are all waiting for us to pick up neatly rubber banded together.  They will also ship them to any branch.  This is great because the books I want maybe scattered in several different branches and they ship them all to one place.    If the library doesn't have it their system we inter library loan it, which I can also do at home.  If we can't find it there we can put in request for them to buy an item and usually they do.  We do like to peruse the shelves pleasure reading, but for the books we use for school I order them.  The kids also order a lot of movies this way. 

I am sure over a years time that we check out thousands of dollars of materials.  We do pay late fees but if we watched the due dates closer we wouldn't have any as we can renew materials from home.   The library also saves us from buying books other than the ones we use for curriculum.  I may be one of the few homeschoolers that doesn't like to buy books. I think they start to smell over the years and just clog the house up with clutter.  We do buy some books, ones that we will want for the long haul or that we will absolutely need longer than three weeks, the length of time we can have a book out if someone else has put in a request for it.   If we do buy a book that I know no one is going to ever read again, I donate somewhere when we are done with it.

Our library has a lot of other great benefits but you get the idea that we love, love, our library.