Full disclosure: I work in a library.

My love affair with the library started when I was about 3 years old. My mom had taught me and my sisters to read when we were super young so we loved books pretty much all our lives. The library was the best thing ever because it was a place with ALL the books. I remember loving going to church every Sunday as a small child because it meant I could check out books from the church library.

I got my first library card when I was 7. Back then there was a book limit of 20 books. To a 7 year old that seemed like a huge amount of books and I had visions of walking out with stacks of books 20 feet high. My parents never banned us from reading things from the library though they did make us read non fiction books to level out the Babysitter Club and Sweet Valley books we were also reading. We also had to read a number of classics as well. This was fine with me as I could usually find a bunch of non fiction books I enjoyed. We also participated in the summer reading program every year and ROCKED those things. We had to xerox the log in sheets because we read so much.

Fast forward a decade and a half later and I found myself working in the library I grew up in as a shelver. It was a dream come true. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got to learn the ins and outs of working in a library and got to know the collection so much better. I learned that working in a library isn’t as easy as it seems and there are some not so fun parts but I really enjoyed it. I moved up to the part time library assistant where I got to interact more with the patrons and found that challengingly fun as well. Now I currently work again in a library and it’s pretty awesome.

Now I know that some people don’t use the libraries and I respect your decision. But if you pay taxes, you really should take advantage of your local library. There’s so many free resources besides just books. I’m not going to go all into that today.

But I will say take advantage of your library if you can. Read this article here to find out 6 ways to be a power library user.

Just remember to bring back your stuff to the library. Or this guy will come after you.