Monday, March 9, 2009

Not Your Father's Library

I was driving to work this morning trying to shake off the remnants of another weekend when I heard an interesting commercial. In my morning haze I had forgotten to change the radio station to my normal sports talk show so this commercial was new to me. It was an advertisement for the Garland County Public Library. I have to admit that I don't even know where the Garland County Library is located. It's not because I am against reading or anything like that. I actually enjoy reading every time I give it a whirl, but I enjoy getting my stories from the idiot box a little bit more. When I am travelling I read a lot so I would consider myself an occasional reader. I don't read enough, however, to know where to find the library.

I knew that libraries contained computers and other modern electronics today. The last time I was in the library the most modern thing was the micro fiche. I still think of the library as the place where you take out books on loan by using a library card. As Jerry Seinfeld once said the library is like a government funded pathetic friend. They will let you take anything if you will just be there friend. According to the clip below they might also send someone after you if you violate the terms of their pathetic friend agreement. This clip including the library cop Mr. Bookman is one of my all time Seinfeld favorites.



Apparently the library is trying a little harder for your friendship today. The commercial on the radio was advertising a Wii Mario Cart tournament. What?!? The library is organizing a Wii tournament. You may think the pathetic friend just branched out into nerdy video games, but I disagree. This is a huge change for the library. I have heard and read about the children's programs that most libraries do as well. According to this ad the programs in Garland County are award winning. I am sure they are not winning Nobel prizes or anything but they should be a great service. Since as a new dad I am learning to stretch a dollar it is great to know that the local library is offering such functions. I hope to take Braden to the library for all kinds of programs in the future. All I have to do now is find the place.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a big reader and I was spending a lot of money on books at Amazon and Borders. If Borders is where all the cool reader kids hang out then the library is definetly the AV room where the kids play D&D.

Just kidding. They have a bunch of computers at my local branch and it doesn't cost anything to check out a book. So I am living it up.

ShankRabbit said...

I was all about the library for a while... until I lost a book - then the library turns into a money grubbing ninja that'll hunt you down all the way to your tax return.

Me and the library don't much get along anymore.

Anonymous said...

I use to take my kids for Story Time, on Wednesday evenings at our local library. You should see (or suggest) if they offer it.
All the kids showed up at 7:30pm in thier pajamas. The reader, one of the staff members, also dressed up in PJ's.
The kids loved it.

-Al

Anonymous said...

We love the library. We go every weekend and get our DVD's, CD's, and books for the week. It really gets the kids into reading and learning to take care of the things they borrow.

And our library always has activities like puppet shows and the like for the kids. FREE entertainment...strething that buck, buddy!

Rob said...

Our local library has a great selection of kids books which is great since I have 3 kids and books and Border or Barnes and Nobel are way expensive. Plus our library will let you rent Wii games FREE for 1 week which my 6 yr old son loves even thought we have like 20 Wii games, LOL.

Anonymous said...

My mother was a librarian when I was growing up, so I used to be in there a lot. I remember being shocked when they started getting videos, then DVDs - I thought libraries were just for books and shushing. Her library even had these "book on tape" MP3 devices you could take out and listen to. Most people don't know about the move into this kind of stuff, although with the economy as it is I bet you'll see more of this kind of advertising...