Libraries have come a long way, baby, from when I was a little girl strolling with my parents into the Mid-Continent Public Library in Claycomo, a Kansas City suburb, to obtain my first library card. I was a new reader, and excited by the vast number of books the library held. Back then, the mid-1960’s, the library was primarily a place to check out books or conduct research for a report. My young mind would never in a million years have dreamed of what libraries would become by 2022. You see, libraries in most communities have changed with the times. The public can still check out books and do reports, but there’s much more going on. Libraries serve communities in many more ways; in fact, some are learning centers for their neighborhoods. There are libraries where people can obtain passports, register to vote, get online to research genealogy or apply for a job, learn how to speak languages, knit, hold classes and events. Libraries, if implemented properly, are community centers.
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