Nancy Klingener with Monroe County Libraries joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the libraries.
There will be an influx of students to the libraries in the summer months.
Klingener said, “Every year we do a whole suite of fabulous summer reading programs, and you can find out all about them if you just go to our website, and each branch has their own programs, and summer reading was started as a way for libraries to help kids stay engaged with reading over the summer, so they didn’t kind of have what they called summer slippage, and lose some of their reading skills, but it’s not like you’re assigned to read The Great Gatsby and write an 800 word essay at all. It’s supposed to be fun, so you can pick up reading logs, weekly reading logs, and just kind of keep track of your reading, and then turn them in to earn a prize at each of our branches, and each of our branches also has a special theme, and lots and lots of programs, and you can find out all about those on our website, and there are links to our online calendar, and I like to remind people, a cool thing about that calendar is you can save an event to your own calendar, you can set up an email reminder for yourself, or you can share it with a friend to be like, hey, this looks like a cool thing we can bring the family to.”
There are also themes to suggested books.
Klingener said, “We’ll have those books kind of prepared and ready for you, but it doesn’t mean you’re required. The whole point of this is for it to be fun and of your own choice. One new thing this year is that our two Upper Keys branches in Islamorada and Key Largo are sharing a theme, which is celebrating America’s 250th birthday, and so that means you can pick up a reading log at one branch or and turn it in at the other, and you can kind of go back and forth, and of course, anyone is welcome to attend any program at any of our branches. They are all free and open to the public. You don’t have to have a library card to attend branches, but to attend programs, but if you do live in the Keys, we really encourage you to get a library card, because then you can really get the full benefits.”
June is Audio Book Appreciation Month.
Klingener said, “Libby, which is right there on our homepage, if you don’t already have Libby, which is the app for ebooks and e-audio books. We have more than 10,000 audiobooks in that collection. So, if you’re somebody who spends a lot of time driving up and down the Keys, if you like to listen to it while you’re working out or doing housework, if you’re planning a road trip this summer, definitely Libby can keep you and the family entertained.”
The Florida Keys History center is also available.
Klingener said, “We’ve decided to expand the hours, so basically it will be open whenever the Key West Library is open, so that means it’ll be open on Wednesday evenings until 8o’clock and on Saturdays from nine to five. So, if you’ve been wanting to come in and visit the History Center,but you have a work schedule that hadn’t allowed that, we hope this will give people a little more flexibility. We do suggest that if you’re making a special trip down with some very specific research in mind, contact us ahead of time, just to make sure, because obviously there are always staffing possibilities, but we will do our best to help you, and just get in touch with us if you have a very specific time and a very specific request, and that way we can be sure that we will be able to help you.”
There are also programs to help with language.
Klingener said, “We’ve also got lots of English as a second language programs, so if you know someone who’s learning English, and the programs are tailored from what your native language is, so it’s English as a second language from Spanish or Russian or Haitian Creole, so that’s a fabulous resource. I’m getting ready to send out our newsletters, and if you go down to the very bottom of our website, under the county seal, you’ll see a place you can sign up for our newsletters, and I am just about to send out both the June newsletter for the library system, and there’s a new edition of Island Chronicles by Dr. Corey Malcom about a piece of Keys history, which had been previously unknown. So that’s a really cool thing to subscribe to if you’re into local history.”
For more information, click here: https://www.keyslibraries.org/