Special to the News-Sun
LAKE PLACID - The Friends of the Library are groups of thoughtful citizens who have stepped up to help the shrinking budget. Your help would be very beneficial to the community. For as little as $15 annually, one can become a "Friend" and get a few benefits as well.
For instance, the Lake Placid Memorial Library offers its membership a discount at the fundraising bookstore and periodic book sales, an informative bulletin board and soon, a tri-annual e-mail newsletter. The funds raised by individual membership have allowed the Board of the Friends of the Lake Placid Memorial Library to purchase several brand new computers for their library earlier this year. They buy many new books each month and fund as much as they can that the system can no longer provide.
However, funds shrink serving these needs and more good people are needed to maintain theexcellent county libraries. The Friends' board has no administrative costs; every cent goes back into the library for its specific community use. Members of the board are volunteers too.
The Friends of the Library at all three of the Highlands County Libraries could use your participation. Funding for the libraries in the county has been drastically reduced in these hard budget times. The elected officials have faced a difficult job and done well in allocation funding for many community activities. The libraries, as most other agencies, have fewer dollars to serve the public.
Residents get a free library card and with that, they can not only check out bestsellers, how-to books and cookbooks; they get CDs and DVDs that are entertainment and educational titles too. One may use a computer for a job search, research on the Internet, or register to vote and then check the genealogy rooms for family histories, all free. There are wonderful children's libraries at all branches, with many current periodicals available.
Contact any librarian, or a "Friend" to join this non-profit group, to help the community maintain the excellent library system we have or check the bulletin board at the library for membership applications and information. You are also invited to volunteer at the library.
There are many tasks done by our current volunteers, in addition to re-stacking books, they repair them, help at the desk, answer phones and generally are just jewels of the community.
A special note to teen volunteers: When you graduate from high school, the fact that you volunteered and gained real experience at a "job" looks pretty good on a resume when you go for that first payday. A family membership includes all the benefits of library membership by the way and a mark of good citizenship.
Sunday, November 18, 2012 - www.newssun.com/111812-Friends