{"id":2024,"date":"2015-09-19T05:49:20","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T05:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/?p=2024"},"modified":"2017-08-22T14:56:48","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T22:56:48","slug":"september-ala-national-library-card-sign-up-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/september-ala-national-library-card-sign-up-month\/","title":{"rendered":"September = ALA National Library Card Sign Up Month!"},"content":{"rendered":"

September is National Library Card Sign-up Month<\/a>, a month long event sponsored by the American Library Association and participated in by libraries across the country. As the newly elected Chair of the ALA Student Chapter of course I want to celebrate and promote this event, however I am embarrassed to admit that up until last week I didn\u2019t even have a library card myself. But before you judge me, let me explain. For the past 10 years I have either been a student or an employee of Columbia University which provides me with access to the university libraries. This includes a vast collection of over 12 million volumes and over 160,000 journals and serials. As it is one of the top five academic library systems in North America embarrassingly I saw no need to visit my local public library.<\/p>\n

Because I felt it would be\"NYPL hypocritical to promote Library Card Sign-up Month and at the same time lack a library card, I decided I need to sign-up. The process was simple, an online application, a reference number that I took to my local branch along with my current photo ID, and in less than three minutes I had my very own library card. But then it hit me, now what? My usual trip to the academic library is predetermined with a research purpose and plan. Often times I locate the materials I need using the online catalog ahead of time and speed through the doors to the area of the stacks I need. I also use it as a quiet place to hole up when I need to study or write a paper, and although I feel a sense of familiarity and comfort in the university library there is a concurrent feeling of academic and scholarly pressure.<\/p>\n

My experience at the public library was so different. The branch that I visited was brightly lit, people were quietly chatting and laughing at nearby tables, and there was a display of newly released titles placed front and center as you walk in. Books about travel, knitting, cooking, and fictional stories called out to be read simply for pleasure. I lingered there for quite some time, flipping through the pages, deciding which one, if any, to check out. After spending so much time in academic libraries in recent years I was surprised by how relaxed I felt browsing the public library. It brought back fond memories of being a kid and spending hours perusing the bookshelves at the library in my hometown. I had forgotten how much I truly enjoyed going to the library just for fun.<\/p>\n

So this September I can now proudly celebrate Library Card Sign-up Month with my shiny new library card, but in addition to that I have renewed my long forgotten love of the library for leisure.<\/p>\n

We here at ALASC SJSU would love to hear your library card stories. How do you use your library card? Feel free to leave comments below. Do you have a library card? Take a photo and share it with us on Twitter<\/a> or Facebook<\/a>. Don\u2019t forget to tag us @alasc and make sure to use #LibraryCardSignUp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September is National Library Card Sign-up Month, a month long event sponsored by the American Library Association and participated in by libraries across the country. As the newly elected Chair […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ala-news","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2024"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2042,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2024\/revisions\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ischoolgroups.sjsu.edu\/alasc\/wp-students\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}