Celebrate libraries at LME

Indie Lens Pop-Up and the Lillie M. Evans Library will host an event on Thursday, April 24^th at 6pm featuring a shortened, preview version of “Free for All: The Public Library” followed by a community discussion. Help us celebrate libraries with this free 1-hour premier in LME Library’s large meeting room. “Free for All: The Public Library” tells the story of the quiet revolutionaries who created a civic institution where everything is free and the doors are open to all.

As children, we took our local libraries for granted. They were as constant as the sun rising, as freely accessible as the air we breathed. Libraries felt like birthrights, alongside public schools, parks, and roads—part of the infrastructure of a thriving democracy. It wasn’t until we grew older, until life began to challenge those certainties, that we saw libraries in a different light.

The public library is one of America’s most valued yet endangered institutions. Director Dawn Logsdon travels the United States, discovering historic and modern-day figures, especially women, who contributed to the library’s integral position within democracy. “Free for All: The Public Library” chronicles the evolution of the nation’s public libraries, tracing the battles over who can enter, what belongs there, and who makes these decisions, while exploring how public commons are defined and defended.

Thanks to Independent Lens and our local PBS station, WTVP, for bringing this program and its resources to LME Library. All ages are welcome! The full length version of “Free for All: The Public Library” debuts on PBS on Tuesday, April 29. More information about this and other library programs can be found on the Lillie M. Evans Library website at lmelibrary.org.

New video promoting libraries

Just in time for Library Lovers Day, actor Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation, Making It, Good Omens) stars in this video, created by Chicago marketing firm Imagination for our library system, RAILS. The Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) wants to celebrate the passion for libraries through The Wizard of the World Wide Web.

The Wizard of the World Wide Web is growing desperate. Can the Internet regain control of the world's knowledge needs when libraries reign supreme? 

More information can be found on My Library Is ... for Library Lovers page at https://www.mylibraryis.org/librarylovers. While there, you can take the Library Lovers Quiz!

A very special thank you to Mr. Offerman for his time, talent, and generosity.

Pew Internet & American Life Project

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is an initiative of the Pew Research Center, a nonprofit “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping America and the world. The Pew Internet Project explores the impact of the internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life.  

They've done surveys on Americans reading habits, how Americans value libraries and on the rise of ereading devices.  Their latest post is on 7 surprises about libraries in our surveys

Their is even a Library User Quiz so you can see how your own library habits stack up against the rest of your community—and the U.S. as a whole. Want to checkout the research they've done so far?  Go to http://libraries.pewinternet.org/about/research-timeline/