September is Library Card Sign-up Month.
Since 1987, every September has been Library Card Sign-up Month. It’s a time when local libraries join the American Library Association and libraries nationwide to remind parents, caregivers and students that signing up for a library card is the first step on the path to academic achievements and lifelong learning.
Nothing is more empowering than signing up for your own library card. Through access to technology, media resources and educational programs, a library card gives students the tools to succeed in the classroom and provides people of all ages opportunities to pursue their dreams and passions.
Here is some of what we know about public libraries, according to Stephen Krashen, Ph.D, who is a member of the Santa Monica (Calif.) Public Library, ALA and the American School Library Association:
• Study after study shows that self-selected pleasure reading is the way we develop our ability to read and write. Those who do more self-selected reading (largely fiction) have larger vocabularies, spell better, write better and read better.
• Those who read more know more. They know more about history, literature, science and even practical matters. And most of what people read is fiction.
• Readers, research has told us, also have more empathy for others. Also, you learn that the world is complex, and simple solutions don’t always work.
• Public libraries are a major source of reading material for pleasure reading. For children of poverty, school and public libraries are often the only source of reading material.
• In 2008, researchers Keith Curry Lance and Robbie Braverman reported that “the greater the amount of circulated materials and the greater the attendance at library programs, the more likely kids will do well in reading.”
Locally, one may sign up for a library card at the Webster County Public Library in Eupora, Mathiston Public Library and Maben Public Library.
