National Library Week 2019

This week (April 7-13) is National Library Week in the U.S. I noted the occasion in a blog post last year as well. If you’re interested you can read that here.

This year’s theme is “Libraries=Strong Communities”. Melinda Gates is the honorary chair. According to a USA Today article I read “In the last 20 years, Gates’ Global Libraries initiative has invested more than $1 billion in enhancing libraries and empowering communities.” A billion! Whew! That’s a lot of money.

Here are a couple other tidbits I got from the article:

- There are more public libraries in the U.S. than Starbucks. That’s quite a feat since it feels like there’s a Starbucks or two around every corner.

- The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world with more than 167 million items. And it’s a beautiful place. We visited it on one of our trips to Malice Domestic.

You can read the full article here.

I’m celebrating the week by catching up on my duties as We Love Libraries Coordinator for Sisters in Crime. This week I got to notify the Cudahy Family Library in Cudahy, WI that they were the winner of the March 2019 Doris Ann Norris We Love Libraries grant of $1000 to be used to buy content for the library. It’s always fun to give money away, particularly to libraries. Libraries can apply for the grant by going to https://www.sistersincrime.org/page/WeLoveLibraries and following the instructions

Cudahy Family Library Submission Photo

I’ll leave you with a video to watch from 2013 where the Seattle Public Library set a record with a book domino chain. Apparently, this record was broken in 2016 at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I still like this video better.