Are You Getting The Most Out Of Your Local Library?

We are all big readers in my family.  I am thankful that each of my boys has a bookshelf in their room STOCKED full of books available for reading.  It just breaks my heart when I hear about so many children who do not have even ONE book in their home.  We get a lot of our books at Half Price Books, garage sales, and Scholastic Book Orders from school.  The rest come from our local library.  Above you will see a shot of the bookshelf in our front entry way.  See the huge overflowing stacks of books, and (yes) DVDs?  It's crazy, right? Well, it may not be very pretty, but this is how I keep the library books from intermingling with the books we own.  And the boys are constantly picking books out and re-stacking, so it's always a mess.  But at least you can see I'm not kidding when I say we LOVE books.
We typically make a library trip every 2-3 weeks.  Sometimes we just go and browse and pick out books.  Other times we get on the library website and search for whatever new author or series we've discovered.  If it is available at the library we can put a "hold" on it.  When that item is returned, and it's our turn to check it out, they put it in the "hold" section of the library and call us (and email me) to tell me to come pick it up.  Easy peasy.  I can also get online and renew items for another week to 3 weeks, depending on the item.  If no one else has requested it, I can renew an item up to 3 times, all without leaving the house.
Did you know that the library also has DVDs, CDs, software programs, read-along books, and audio mp3 books to check out?  We like to check out the read-along books and then I upload the audio file to their mp3 players.  It's great for car trips, or just sitting on the sofa listening to a good book.  DVDs are checked out for a week at a time, and yes, they have new releases coming in all the time.  I can go online and see what they've ordered for each month and request items accordingly.  We also check out CDs and put the files on our mp3 players.  It's such a great resource that our city provides.
I use a program called Library Elf, which will show me exactly what I've got out, and emails me when each item is due.  This service is completely FREE and has saved us so much money in late fees!  You can go HERE to sign up for Library Elf. 
If you've not been there in a while, I highly suggest heading to your local library....you'll be amazed at what you find.  This is not like the library I used to visit when I was a kid!  Happy reading!