by Jeff Cann
Internet, cable television, Spotify, Netflix, Disney, Hulu, Apple TV, Peacock, Prime. So many things to spend your money on these days. As a young adult in 1984 and just starting my independent life, none of these services existed. Subscriptions have become an accepted part of our monthly expenses, but they sure do chop away at our excess spending money. How long until we start paying a subscription fee to use our favorite search engine?
Some of the things I spent my money on back in 1984 included buying books and subscribing to magazines and a daily newspaper. Obviously, these are ongoing expenses for many people today. With the cost of *everything* rising dramatically year after year, most of us are looking for ways to cut costs.
As the Adams County Library System’s Finance Director, a question non-library-users repeatedly ask me is, “With everything available online these days, are libraries even relevant anymore?” In the context of the last two paragraphs, it’s true that you can pay for access to all the materials listed above, but you don’t have to.
Books—borrow, don’t buy: For centuries, libraries have been known for lending books. In fact, if you ask a sampling of ten people about the purpose of a library, I bet eight of them will say lending books. ACLS has over 143,000 books to loan. It’s true the Adams County Library System can’t carry every book you might want to read, but through our Inter-Library Loan System, you would be hard-pressed to think of an unavailable title.
ebooks and eAudio Books—we’ve got them too: For convenience, many people have switched to Audio Books and ebooks downloaded to their tablet or phone. A couple of popular subscription services for eBooks and eAudio Books are Everand and Audible at $12 and $8 per month, respectively. The ACLS e-library on the CloudLibrary platform contains twenty thousand titles for you to choose from… for free.
Streaming Video—brand new this year: The library is now offering a streaming video service through Kanopy. This includes children’s shows, films, TV shows, educational videos, and documentaries. With your library card, you can attach your device or smart TV and choose from thousands of titles. Our service offers unlimited streaming of children’s programs and twenty monthly tickets for each cardholder to watch blockbuster movies, foreign films, documentaries, TV shows, and more.
Streaming Music—a ‘record collection’ at your fingertips: Music subscription services are awesome. How nice it is to just think of a song you want to hear and then cue it up for a listen. Services like Spotify are available for free but with periodic advertisements. You might as well be listening to the radio. The library system offers patrons Freegal Music Streaming Service. Freegal boasts over fifteen million songs from more than two hundred genres of music. You can stream them or download them for offline access. No ads, no fees, just your favorite music.
Magazines—take your pick: The sad truth of the magazine industry is that many familiar titles are going out of print. Hardly a month goes by, and we don’t learn that one of our subscriptions is no longer available by mail. But with our CloudLibrary NewsStand service, you can browse and read an ever-expanding catalog of magazines online. NewsStand currently carries over 7,500 of your favorite magazines.
To access all of these awesome, money-saving services, visit our eLibrary page on the Adams County Library website: https://www.adamslibrary.org/elibrary. Except, of course, if you want to borrow a physical book. You still need to come to the library to get one of those.
Jeff Cann is Finance Director of the Adams County Library System.