Saturday, April 4, 2015

#ReadingMyLibraryChallenge: Week One Update


Reading My Library Challenge



I am participating in the #ReadingMyLibraryChallenge hosted by Stefani at Caught Red Handed and Amy at Read What I Like.  Since I already frequent my library, I knew this was the challenge for me. I intend to keep going to after this month, though :-),  as well as go through my TBR pile at home.  I joined a great deal of challenges for which I have no books at home, so this requires going to the library.  

I am keeping tract of the books I read week on my original sign up post here.  Below is a shot of the books I took out early this week (two were inter-library loans, received this past Tuesday) and the others I took out on Friday.






For the first week's update, the hosts are asking the participants to tell a little about their hometown library, and include pictures of possible.

I live in Hollister, California, a very small and rural town known for agriculture and for its annual Motorcycle Rally each year on the 4th of July Weekend.  We are also known for having very little for the community to do as far as activities go.  Residents have complained about this for years upon years, and very little gets done to resolve it. But we do have the all-important resource known as the library.
Our library is closed on Saturdays and for a while until early last year, they closed on Fridays as well, reopening on Fridays for four hours only.   Along with the physical books, they also carry audiobooks on CD and music CDs, as well as DVDs.  I've never borrowed CDs, and only sometimes DVDs, since I get Netflix, and I only got into listening to audiobooks a few years ago.  Buying new audiobooks is expensive, and I rarely see used ones for sale (occasionally ones on cassette, and yes, I have equipment for that), so most of my audiobooks come from the library.

And of course, we have computers, maps  and other city and county resources people have come to expect from their local libraries.  And a collection of books about our town's history as well as about the history of California.

On Saturdays, the Friends of the Library has a book sale in a shed located behind the library. I've gone to this a few times, but it's early in the morning, closing at noon, and I'm not usually an early riser when I don't need to be.  If Iw ant to do it ever, I'll try to, though.


 I forgot to take pictures while I was getting and returning books yesterday, so today I went to get some shots.   




In addition to the San Benito County Library, there is one other smaller library in the county, the Carl Martin Luck Memorial Library in the nearby smaller town of San Juan Bautista.  (A bookmobile from the county library delivers books to the rest of the county).  I have a card for that one as well, but since I'm a Hollister resident, I got the Hollister one most often.  The San Juan one is nice, too, and though ti's smaller, it has some books the larger county library doesn't have.  I'll go when I can get there, but it's been a while since I last did so.  They don't open till 1PM (closing at 5 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and at 7 on Tuesday and Thursday) on weekdays and from 9AM to 1PM on Saturdays.  Below is a photo shot from the lawn in front of the San Juan Library.


And a side note--Today I was at one of my local thrift shops and saw three books I couldn't resist buying.  They were only 50 cents each, and it's hard to resist getting them for that amount. I stated in my original sign up post that if I buy any books during this period, they will not be read until after this month, when the challenge is over. I intend to stick to that.  

2 comments:

Stephanie Faris said...

It's funny--I still get VERY excited at the sight of that stack of books in your publisher. There's nothing more exciting than going to the library and picking up a stack of books! I read on a Kindle now, and it's not the same to buy a book and put it on your Kindle. Still--I can't really read paper books on my treadmill because I can't see the text as well.

Unknown said...

Ooo! You'll have to tell me what you think of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I've been wanting to read that one!
Stefani @ Caught Read Handed