We took a little field trip to the country's first all-digital public library which opened right here in south San Antonio in 2013.
But first, a van full of crazies. This is what we do on co-op day
if it's too cold and rainy outside for the kids to play.
Ashley is the lovely head librarian who gave us a tour.
We were there before library hours, so we had the place all to ourselves.
That's a lot of iMacs.
They do a lot of technology help and training.
They do not lend out physical books, but they do lend out eReaders (Nooks, I think) through which books can be checked out.
They go out into the community to do events and training.
They have a specialist on staff who helps legally blind constituents with devices.
They do lots of other stuff too, but I can't remember it right now. :-)
Once Ashley showed us this room, there was no leaving.
And how nice to have it to ourselves for an hour or so!
There were two Xbox Kinects on the wall, several Surface Tables, iPads,
and other computer-type devices filled with kid-friendly games.
It's a county library as opposed to a city library, so we got another set of library cards so we can use all the wonderful resources they offer online. They're a little far to drive to very often, but you can check out everything online (of course), so there's no need to drive. Elizabeth is excited about having a new set of books to browse through. I'm excited about Ancestry.com (which is free access only from the physical library) and Mango (online language lessons for the kids!). And there's a number of other resources I need to look into.
It was a fun excursion. A first for our country (I'm sure many more will follow; they're already planning another all-digital location on the West side of San Antonio). And we had some great talks with the librarian about the direction of our culture and ebooks and paper books. She was homeschooled growing up as well, so that was fun to talk about.
