Your Public Library can Save You Money in Tough Times
McPherson Sentinel, October 7, 2011
We are living in some hard economic times, and most people are feeling the effects. Some don’t have enough money to get by. Other people and families are reducing expenses and doing some belt-tightening, deciding what they can live without. In tough times like these, you can always count on your public library to be here. Everyone knows that you can save money by borrowing books from the library instead of buying them, but here are a few other ways that we can help out.
Read Them for Free
Subscription prices for most magazines and newspapers are up and the amount of content just isn’t as much as it once was. The McPherson Public Library subscribes to all of the McPherson County newspapers as well as the major Kansas newspapers – plus The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. We also subscribe to more than 150 magazines for adults and children. You can even check out back issues of magazines and take them home.
Maybe you’re looking for a job and need to see some help wanted ads. Maybe you enjoy Sports Illustrated and your kids like Ranger Rick Magazine, but you can’t afford to resubscribe. Come in and take a look at our selection.
Use it For free
If you can live without Internet service and a computer in your home, then visit the public library and use ours for free. We have a number of workstations on which you can access the Internet or use Microsoft Office to write a resume or do other applications.
Our Internet workstations are very popular, but if you walk in the door and see that all of them are busy, don’t despair. Use our reservation station to reserve the next available terminal. Someone logs on to one of our Internet workstations an average of every seven minutes, so you probably won’t have to wait long. You can even give us a call ahead of time and we will make a reservation for you.
The entire library is covered by a wireless network, and most of our study carrels and tables are wired for power, so if you have a laptop computer, bring it in and use our wireless Internet. Many people do so.
Find Out for Free How to Fix it
Maybe you like to tinker with cars, but with the bad economy, you’re have to do a little more tinkering than you had planned. The McPherson Public Library can help you with that too.
If you visit the library web site at www.macpl.org and select the Search Databases option from the menu bar on the left side of the page, you can access our online Chilton automobile manuals. They have repair and maintenance manuals for just about every domestic and foreign car, some going back into the 1940’s. They even have manuals for a 1976 AMC Gremlin! Best of all, you can use ChiltonLibrary either in the library or from home with a McPherson Public Library borrower’s card.
Next month: Even more ways the library can help save you money.