Make good use of your Library! Part 1!

Foley Public Library (picture source)

Now you may have heard this before but I decided rather than take the chance, I would share the information! Have you realized what a great resource your public library can be? Especially in today's economy, rather than buying books or renting movies, check out your local library! You can't beat free membership! Grant it, it is paid for by our tax dollars so really you are already paying for it....you might as well use it!

Alot of people don't realize that libraries are not just a bunch of old books. They have new books that come in constantly. They even have ton's of movies on tape or dvd as well as books on cd or tape. A couple years ago when I learned that the library had DVD's we were subscribing to Netflix online. I sat at the computer one day and went down my Netflix list and found that my library had half the movies on the list. I made myself a list of movies in Word that I wanted to see that were also at the library and then I wouldn't have to use my Netflix movies on ones I could get for free. And even now that we don't have Netflix anymore, you won't catch me spending $ at movie rental places. I can be patient and just wait for the movie at the library to become available. Which you do need to take note, movies at the library can sometimes take a long time to become available as more and more people realize this great source.

I am going to show you the online screens to get to where you can log in to your account on the Foley Public Library Site. Check with your local library if you are not in Baldwin County, Alabama because odd's are yours has something like it. If you are fortunate to have a membership with one of the Baldwin County Libraries you can check out books from any of the branches in the county. What is so great about this is because you can go online and see where a book is available. If it is not at your branch you can request a copy of it and they will send it from whatever branch has it available to your home branch for you to pick up. This usually takes a couple days.

Below you will see a portion of the main screen when you go to Foley's website. Look down the left hand sidebar and you will see several options. Click on the one that says Patron Accounts.

Next you will be taken to a screen that has the following. Here you can click on the "Your account" button and it will take you to where you can sign in.

This is the screen it takes you to that is the same for all branches of the library. Here you can sign in or you can call the number it has for the library to help you set up your online account. It is so easy if you need to call and takes less than 5 minutes. Just be sure to have your library card handy.

Once you are signed in this is what the screen will look like no matter what branch you are a member of at the time. It's very user friendly.

Well that wraps it up for today. Next time I will break down for you searching for a book online and placing it on hold! Easy stuff but sometimes we need visuals! I hope that this has gotten you thinking about using your library and all it's great services. Don't forget that your church may have a free library too. Swift Church does and our librarian has been doing an excellent job of getting it organized. Put some money back in your pockets!