It’s the Latest, It’s the Greatest, It’s the Library

I remember this catchy tune from years ago, at least some of the words anyway, and I’m sure its rallying cry made library fans out of lots and lots of kids and their parents. “The Library Song” was published in 1967 by Joleron Music Corp., and written by Fred Hertz and Joel Herron and was sung in schools and on kids’ television shows back in the day.

I’ve always been a big fan of libraries, from the time I learned to read, right up until right now. Last Friday I worked at a library book sale, and the next day, on Saturday, I joined several other local writers to speak at an “authors’ day” event in a library on the other side of town. My local library makes it really easy to digitally search the shelves of all branches in my county, and one of the reasons I selected the new home that I wound up in last year was that it’s walking distance to a well-stocked library.

One of the things I’m most proud of was writing and winning a grant to purchase children’s books for my local library as part of a nationwide program called “1,000 Books Before Kindergarten (https://1000booksbeforekindergarten.org/). My county doesn’t fund the purchase of children’s books because they have such a short shelf life, so money to replenish them is often is short supply. Now we have well stocked shelves of new books via this program which encourages parents to read to their children, which in turn encourages the kids to develop a lifelong love of reading.

National Library Week falls in April of each year, but don’t wait until then to pay a visit, donate a few bucks, or encourage neighbors and family to join (or start) a library friends group in your community (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_Libraries). It takes so little effort to achieve such gratifying results.