I absolutely love this. Good stuff, man.
this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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I love how you include a cleanup space. Very cozy 3rd place for people to hangout. Good job dude!
How do you continue to fund this though?
Primarily funded through taxes, but even the local Republicans aren't suggesting cutting the library budget. They're pissed off about the clean-up room because "it will encourage them" (while also complaining about the smelly homeless people in the library), but they also know the library here is super popular. There was a "we love our library" yard sign they were doing a few years ago and they ran out of signs. They have a summer community book read and they did The Martian this year and ran out of free copies.
Such a weird town. A lot of poor people, many of them without advanced education, but a lot of readers as well.
Keep fighting the good fight against ignorance and illiteracy!
Nice! We need people like you all over the world
Not me, my wife. This is all her.
Every public library is a beacon of hope. Its the most true symbol of a civilized society. Each one brings light of knowledge where there would otherwise be darkness of ignorance.
Please pass my thanks to your wife for advancing civilization.
That looks awesome!
A few tips, based on what has worked in our local libraries:
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A story-reading space where parents or caregivers can bring infants and toddlers to listen to books being read outloud. Librarians, parents, and volunteers take turns as book readers. Hugely popular. Absolutely packed them in. One branch even built a hand-painted replica of the "Goodnight Moon" set.
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A separate, private space for nursing mothers.
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If the budget allows it, a phone charging station.
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Space for common government forms. Applications for welfare, disability, voter, and tax forms. If you can get volunteers to help, even better.
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Was going to mention tools, but see you already have it. In ours, you can check out shovels, saws, wrench sets, gardening tools, etc, to take home for a few days. It got so popular they had to move into their own space.
We love our local libraries.
Thank you.
Obviously I love books and complaining about not enough books. But actually who cares. This is badass. Every bullet point cooler than the last. A kitchen? A workshop?? A shower and wash room?!
Actually excellent. Congrats to your wife's hard work!
My god the world needs people like your wife. Man. Tell her that I said she’s amazing.
Thanks, I read a bunch of comments to her this morning and I'll read more to her when she gets home tonight.
Just another wow post, make sure to tell her people from all over the world are grateful for her work:)
I told her just before she left for work this morning about the positive responses she's received from Lemmings and she was really happy about it. She has worked so hard on this and I'm so impressed with the results. It was the first time I'd seen the inside.
I really wish Imgur didn't block VPNs 🙁
I'm sure it's lovely - congratulations!
Is that why I see that message instead?
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We really need more wholesome stuff like this in Lemmy.
Before you start complaining about how “libraries don’t have books anymore!” The book stacks are still a 10-minute drive/bus ride away at the downtown branch. The books aren’t going anywhere. Libraries are more than just books. They are one of the few places the community can get all sorts of resources and a place to access them for free
There's always interlibrary loans. I'm sure you can search for a book on the online catalogue and ask for it to be transferred from another branch.
Anyway, fantastic and very creative work. I wish I had a library like this near me growing up.
You absolutely can. I've done it multiple times myself. Pretty much any public library (in the U.S. anyway) can do ILLs from what I understand.
Holy crap, that is a legitimately amazing place! Well done by Mrs. Squid!!
P.S. Libraries rock and are true treasures
Wow.. that's gorgeous. A real community center..
That's cool as shit, wow. I hope she's proud!
She's very proud. And very tired.
The clean up area... Amazing.
Being dirty was one of my biggest fears when I was homeless. I felt like if I passed the point where I couldn't clean myself anymore, it would just get so much worse from there.
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Libraries are the best shining examples of community service & thats the coolest library I’ve ever seen. props to your wife and who helped make it happen!
This is incredible and is going to be such a benefit to the community. Your wife is good people and the world truly needs more libraries and "third places" for everyone in a community to use and feel safe in regardless of their socioeconomic status or education or anything else.
How many people did it take to get this done? It looks fantastic for something that is just getting started.
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holy freaking cow this is the coolest thing ever! is there any way that we can (through sheer willpower maybe?) magically make one of these in every state?
stuff like this keeps me and my hope in humanity alive, thank you for sharing and thank you Mrs. Squid for being so awesome :)
Talk to your library board!
I actually feel like I'm going to cry right now. This is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard of. I wish every town had something like this
Elkhart didn't have the best libraries when I was growing up (80s), but they felt like the only decent lifeline to the outside world, before the internet. I regret not taking better advantage of them, but their selection was extremely old till they moved to a bigger building.
Farmers have a really weird love/hate attitude towards books.
Try to convince your library to get a 3d printer, and do demonstration classes, I think they'll find people really like them and kids can make projects for their parents or even school (our schools had 0 budget for anything, we legit learned on trash 80s in 1991).
Edit: looking through the pictures, would love to take my kid there, nice.
The main branch already does have a 3D printer! Also a laser cutter, an audio recording booth, sewing machines... all kinds of cool stuff.
That's really awesome!
I think things like this really help bring the community together, which is what we've lost the most over the past 3 decades, we've traded being "rich" (ie externally showy) for being comfortable and having a community. We compete with each other and drive ourselves apart.
As a grumpy skeptic doomer, thank you! Keep doing this. I really hope it helps a great number of people.
That is AWESOME! You both must be so proud!
We sure are, thanks!
Very cool. Seems like it has all the things many modern libraries should pivot to offering where possible.
Congrats.
Is Terre Haute really that poor? Not what I'd expect from the hometown of one of our country's most premier private technical colleges. Usually a college contributes quite a bit to the local economy, and that's a fancy one.
Average household income is ~$40,000, which is about half the national average, and there's a lot of joblessness, homelessness and substance abuse.
Rose-Hulman is a great school, but the school is outside of town and there's no bus from there to town either, so they don't go. We actually have three schools here- RHIT, Indiana State Univeristy and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. The students of all of them rarely leave campus. And I don't blame them because in general, there's fuck all for them to do.
Looks great fellow Hoosier. Terre Haute needs more of this.
Congratulations! I love seeing new libraries show up! I hope you don't have to deal with authoritarian jackasses trying to ban books.
This is amazing! I love hearing stories like this. Keep up the fantastic work.
Huge W
Tell her thank you. Awesome job. Now can we put one of these in every town?
Heeeey whats up my fellow hoosier. Cheers to your bookstore!!
Dope. As. Fuck.
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