Every public library across the United States is different. This is both a strength and a challenge of libraries: they can cater their services and offerings to their communities but in communities where funding is not robust, what the library can offer might be quite hindered. This impacts everything from the kind of staff who can be hired to the kinds of materials made available for borrowing to the array of programs offered throughout the year. That uniqueness, though, is something that can be easy to forget or overlook, especially if you’re a power library lover and user. In a recent staff education program for my colleagues and some recent work with my Friends of the Library group, I realized how many cool, often-forgotten, maybe not greatly publicized things U.S. public libraries off that you might not know about.
The above caveats matter for…
