Planet matters

Jane Powers on your local library

Jane Powerson your local library

Some ways of lessening one's impact on this planet are right there in front of one's nose, but still one doesn't see them. Or rather, let's not be coy with the "one" stuff. It was my nose. And my local library that was right in front of it. But I just hadn't been seeing it for the past decade or so. As a child and young adult, I was an avid library-goer, but somewhere along the way this excellent and free facility dropped off my mental map.

Yet how things have changed since I last used our public library system. The library is now much more than a repository for books and periodicals: most also lend out music CDs, language courses, DVDs and talking books. Many now have free internet access (and, often, classes on navigating the world wide web and setting up an e-mail account). Old ordnance survey maps are available online in several branches, as is a wealth of information on local history. Some libraries have peculiar specialities: my own branch has an unexpected and eclectic collection of elderly sheet music, including works by Gilbert and Sullivan, Piano Selections from Walt Disney's Dumbo, and Wagner's Lohengrin - not exactly something for everyone, but certainly a potential tool to broaden one's horizons.

Yet most amazing (at least to this reawakened library lover) is that you don't even need to leave your home to use your library. Go online, and you can renew your books, or check the catalogue, or indeed the catalogues across the entire country's library system (www.borrowbooks.ie). Order a book from any other library, and, in the fullness of time, it will arrive at your local branch. Some libraries offer a service where, if you key in your library card number, you can gain access to world newspapers, a premium service from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and various other information-packed goodies - all via your home computer.

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There are 350 public libraries in Ireland. In Dublin city alone, there are around two-dozen branches, as well as a number of mobile library vans, and a prison library service. The Dublin City Library network has 200,000 members who can borrow or peruse the 1.5 million items in stock (and the 120,000 new items being added each year). It also has 85 reading groups across the system, as well as a number of writing groups.

Indeed, all libraries now offer far more than books and periodicals - so follow your nose and find out.