Posts tagged family resources

I love the Hawaii State Public Library. For a family guy, a movie guy, a music guy, and an audio-book guy, it’s got a ton of stuff and it’s all pretty cheap and easy to get.

Did you know that you can check out as many books as you want on your library card? Keep them for up to 3 weeks. For a family, this is great — we check out a bag full of books for our son. About 1/3 of them we find out later, he just doesn’t like. No matter how we try to make the board book interesting, he won’t have anything to do with it. But we’ve also found some real gems, like “Blankie”, “Goodnight, My Duckling”, and others.

Did you know that you can rent DVD movies, often new releases, for just $1 a week? That’s cheaper than Blockbuster. And with the library’s online catalog, it’s as easy as NetFlix. Just search for the title you want, Request it, enter in your library card number and PIN (usually your last four digits of your phone number), and wait. (And wait. Unfortunately, you may be request number 218 like I am for some, meaning 217 people are before me and if everyone has a week, I might as well just go to Blockbuster and rent it! ) Also, note that after that rental week is up, fees are $1/day! So, rent it, view it, and return it quick! Plus, each library location has lots of titles in stock so you can pick up an emergency “Wiggles” DVD with your books.

For music lovers, they have a large selection of Hawaiian, classical, oldies, and children’s, along with some of the newest pop titles. CDs are checked out for 3 weeks, like books, limit 10.

And for those audio book lovers, try out their electronic catalog: hawaii.lib.overdrive.com where you can find some of the newest books available to download as either an audio file or a PDF. (These are secure copies, so there are limitations, like you may not be able to print the PDF, or you can only use the audio files on Windows Player.)

Hey, it’s your public library, take advantage of it! If you don’t have a library card already, stop by one of the branch offices and sign up today.

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[Note: I've found linking to and sharing items within the Library's catalog not so helpful, as session information is embedded within the URL string. So, I've included links to Amazon's products as examples instead.]