How We Use the Library

The library is a big deal for us. We love books but don’t want to spend a fortune or have to store a million books. We can rotate books easily through the library. Plus it’s really close so it’s a pretty easy outing, even with a baby. If only we could walk there! 

Don’t get me wrong, we have tons of books. But the library gives us plenty of options and we can use them to go along with some of the school lessons we’re working on and the seasons we’re celebrating.

First step….ONLINE!

The easiest way to get the most out of the library for us has been to search online and find any possible books that would fit for us. At the beginning of the summer, we had over 600 books saved for us to read. After finding the ones that will work, you can place holds for them. NO searching through the entire library or just the children’s section for books. They will pull them and have them nicely waiting on you! Plus this opens up your selection to all parish branches of the library, not just the local one.

Easily we can see what we have checked out and renew items online! So nice in preventing late returns!Easy topic searching. Plus you can chose formats (children’s collection!)

Once we have our giant saved list, I just go through and pick the books that would work well for what we’re doing or what seems to be the fun topic of the week. (ABC, trucks, etc)

You can set alerts to let you know when your holds are ready to be picked up! It’s very convenient and family friendly. 

So we generally walk in, return our books, and let the librarians know we have holds. While they go to get our stacks, we go and look through books. Nate generally gets the same book from the back that has a truck on it…101 First Words Things that Go. We’ve checked this book out about 51212482 times. But it’s a book he’s asking to borrow and loves to look through it so I’m totally fine with it.