“They had been choosing up tax info and getting tutored in English and testing films and tracing their household historical past. They had been sitting within the library, simply because it was a nice place to sit down, and typically they had been doing issues that had nothing to do with the library.” — Susan Orlean, “The Library E book”
In her ode to the fire-ravaged previous library in downtown Los Angeles (and to libraries generally), Orlean factors out one thing that’s straightforward to overlook: These beloved literary repositories provide excess of simply books. And on the identical low worth of zero {dollars}. All you want is a library card. Should you don’t have a kind of, properly, they’re free too.
Orlean was writing concerning the authentic Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL), which right this moment boasts 73 branches. These hubs, together with the numerous L.A. County and impartial library areas within the metropolis, can hook you up with nifty gadgets comparable to energy sanders, telescopes and free passes to the zoo. (However as any librarian will inform you — in a solemn tone as she lowers her glasses — reference books should stay on the premises).
Listed below are eight little-known issues you’ll be able to take a look at from L.A. libraries. Simply bear in mind to return them in a single to 3 weeks.
1. A ukulele
The LAPL acquired fairly a response to the latest TikTok video it posted about lending out ukuleles. Every instrument comes with a case, a e-book of chords and a tuner. They’re obtainable at 17 of LAPL’s 73 areas.
Marc Horton, the librarian on the San Pedro department who got here up with the thought, instructed me in an e-mail that ukuleles are the one devices the library provides. He selected the Hawaiian mini-guitars as a result of they’re small, cheap and low-maintenance, “versus, say, trumpets,” and since they’re a “gateway instrument … a forgiving, unintimidating” piece that may spark curiosity in different methods to make music.
Horton’s principal inspiration, although, was Beatles legend George Harrison, who as soon as known as ukuleles “the one instrument you’ll be able to’t play and never chuckle!”
Particulars: LAPL
2. A digital actuality headset
The Altadena Library’s two branches provide a “Library of Issues,” together with digital actuality headsets, which children will love for the video games (comparable to “Star Wars Vader Immortal”) and grown-ups will dig due to Nationwide Geographic Discover, which permits wearers to expertise Machu Picchu or Antarctica. Additionally amongst Altadena’s “issues” you’ll be able to borrow: Orion telescopes and mountain climbing backpacks, which embrace native path guides, a primary support package and a flashlight.
Particulars: Altadena Library
3. A go to state parks
Contemplating a day journey to the sapphire waters of Crystal Cove (close to Newport Seashore)? Headed as much as Massive Sur, and the cliffs of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park? Your native library could make each journeys simpler with a go for “one passenger automobile with capability of 9 folks or much less, or one highway-licensed motorbike.”
There’s normally a waitlist for these, so plan forward. Some state parks don’t take part on this program, however the overwhelming majority do. Right here’s an entire record of each, and a useful map.
Particulars: LAPL, L.A. County Library
4. Museum admission
The “Uncover & Go” program at each the LAPL and L.A. County Library permits card holders to make on-line reservations at choose museums and sights, as much as three months prematurely.
Collaborating companions embrace The Broad, La Brea Tar Pits, the L.A. Zoo, the Pure Historical past Museum of L.A. County and the brand-new Academy Museum of Movement Footage, the place, for an extra payment, friends can strut throughout the stage on the (simulated) Dolby Theatre and settle for a (reproduction) Oscar.
Particulars: LAPL, L.A. County Library
5 branches of the L.A. County Library (Compton, Lancaster, Norwalk, Rosemead and San Fernando) provide instruments “to assist our clients be taught new abilities and full new and present initiatives.”
Cookware, stitching machines, gardening instruments, energy instruments, bike-repair implements, extension cords of varied lengths. Should you want it, they’ve in all probability acquired it. There are greater than 100 items obtainable. (A library spokesperson declined to touch upon whether or not its “mild bulb changer package” is in style amongst politicians.)
Cardholders have to be 18 and prepared to return what they borrowed inside seven days.
Particulars: L.A. County Library
6. A laptop computer or iPad mini
Each the LAPL and L.A. County Library provide Chromebooks and cellular Wi-Fi scorching spots for checkout. Every laptop computer is provided with instruments comparable to Adobe Acrobat Reader and with Google packages comparable to Calendar, Docs and Drive.
Each libraries provide coaching and details about use computer systems for job looking. The “Work Prepared” program permits debtors to maintain the gadgets for six weeks.
For youthful net browsers, the town library carries iPad minis at 4 areas (Chatsworth, Sylmar, Vernon and the R.L. Stevenson department in Boyle Heights) which can be loaded with actions, video games and studying instruments for teenagers.
Whichever machine you borrow, the librarians ask that you just return them in particular person as an alternative of slipping them into the e-book drop.
Particulars: LAPL, L.A. County Library
7. A U.S. citizenship package
The county library people name it “citizenship in a bag,” and the very thought of it makes this cussed believer within the American experiment slightly misty-eyed.
Inside every package is “quite a lot of instructional supplies” to assist aspiring People put together for the naturalization examination, together with flash playing cards and multimedia instruments.
The perfect half is the stuff that debtors preserve, with no due date: “step-by-step directions on the U.S. naturalization course of, reference supplies on the rights and tasks of U.S. residents, and official citizenship kinds, together with the applying for naturalization.”
Particulars: L.A. County Library
8. Nature exploration gear
Summer season’s nearly over, but it surely’s all the time a great time for teenagers to get their out of doors journey on. Provided in partnership with the Pure Historical past Museum of L.A. County, nature exploration baggage “embrace scientists’ instruments like a magnifying glass and specimen jars, and a Discipline Information of suggestions and methods that will help you uncover animals and vegetation.”
Out there at 5 county library branches (San Fernando, Metropolis Terrace, Quartz Hill, South Whittier and Compton) the kits might be checked out for as much as three weeks.
Particulars: L.A. County Library
