Norma Logan is the Literacy Volunteer Coordinator at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Read her column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.
From the Library - Library Lover's Month by Norma Logan and read by Charlotte Canelli
February is upon us. The festivities of the holiday season are distant memories, and we are facing the second month of the New Year thinking of hearts and flowers for Valentine’s Day. However, there is something else to
celebrate in February, and that is Library Lovers’ Month! If you are already a Library Lover, come celebrate your passion, but if you are not, come visit us and discover all the great and free things that adults and children can do and see at your library in 2012.
Come get a library card if you don’t have one. It will open many doors for you.
It will allow you to use the library computers, and get on the many databases on the Morrill Memorial Library website (www.norwoodlibrary.org). If you prefer to bring your own laptop, you can connect to the internet for free. You can even sign up for a beginner level computer class or get museum passes for reduced entrance rates.
Come support Library programs. Become a Literacy Volunteer and help someone learn to speak, read or write English better, or be an Outreach Volunteer and deliver books to shut-ins. If you know someone who may need help speaking or reading English, send them to the library for free English tutoring. Join the Friends of the Library, and be involved in helping the library prosper.
Come to the library with your children or grandchildren and involve them in story times. For a $15 donation,you can even celebrate a child’s birthday by choosing a newly ordered book on a cart, and having the child’s name and birth date put on a bookplate inside the book.
Come be entertained with Monday night at the movies, or learn something new at an educational program sponsored by the library. Come play in the Adult Scrabble Club on Tuesday evenings. Children in grades 3-8 can play in the Kids Scrabble Club.
If you can’t get to the library, did you know that
• you can download electronic books on that new Kindle or Nook you got for the holidays?
• you can visit the library’s website (www.norwoodlibrary.org), and explore the databases with your library card at home?
• Norwood residents unable to get to the library because of special needs, illness or disability can have personal delivery of reading materials?
The library is here to serve your needs. In this time of budget cuts and financial worries, don’t let the library be taken for granted. Encourage your elected town officials to support the library and its needs. This
is the time to acknowledge the value of libraries and to work to assure that our libraries will continue to serve.
In the words of Salman Rushdie, “If knowledge is power, then the public library system gives that power to anyone who wants it.”
