Queens Library - Corona

Recent Queens Public Library - Corona Branch Visit

I dropped by the Corona library, a branch of the Queens Public Library system, on a Saturday afternoon, in early February. This was the library branch where I obtained my first public library card.


What I Found

I was glad to find the library still catered to young school students, a good half of library seemed aimed toward kids. The children's book section were filled with books for young children in both English and Spanish. The Corona area of Queens is dominated by the Hispanic community, and the library reflects this. I found a Spanish section of books and saw spanish magazines in the magazine racks. There were many computers available for public use and the checkout counters are all automated with someone standing by to help. Though when I checked out two books, I could not find the person to help us figure the system out. It seems to use some kind of weight and RFID type system to detect the books. I did not find much of a DVD selection in this library though. This is understandable, since it is a small neighborhood library.


First Library Card Memories

As I mentioned, I obtained my first library card from this library.

Boy was I happy when I got my library card! I started borrowing books and read a great deal. I don't remember the first book I ever borrowed, but I did borrow Hardy Boys, Origami, Paper Airplanes and other books of interest to me at the time. I started borrowing many other books in all genres. Much of my interest in computers were enhanced due to the availability of Byte and other computer magazines at the time. I would sit in front of a school computer and type in the BASIC programs I found in those magazines.

Back then all the books were checked out and then stamped with a mechanical date stamp. Today you can find automated checkout stations in many libraries. I was happy to see so many young children and adults sitting at the public computer terminals.


Support The Library

I mentioned on my earlier blog post, Sign The Petition To Save Our Libraries, that I would find out more about how we can support the Library's petition. I did speak to Mr. Jimmy Van Bramer and he will let me know when the online version of the Petition will be available. I will spread the word once I am notified of the online petition. The budget decision will be made in mid-year 2009. If you have a way to put up an online petition quickly, perhaps you can contact Mr. Jimmy Van Bramer to offer your help and services. Here is a previous petition for the Library from 2008.

In the meantime, what can we do to help? Here are some ideas:

• Call 311 and tell them you don't want the Queens Library budget cut to go through
• Contact Mayor Bloomberg, I read his biography thanks to the Library system. Here is a short snippet from the NYC web site.
• Contact Christine Quinn, speaker of the City Council and express your concern and support.
  
• Tell your family, your neighbors, friends and classmates about this petition. I asked a friend to sign last week.
• Sign the petition at your local library.
• Make your voice heard and make sure our tax dollars are directed toward your local Queens Library!

I found some of the above contact links from the NYC.gov website.

Additional Queens Library Resources:

• Queens Library Learning 2.0 blog
• Public Library Association Blog
• Queens Library Foundation
• AquaBrowser Library - Find Books and discover related items from Queens Library
• Queens Library Twitter account
  

For additional links to frugal tips and tricks follow me on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to FrugalNYC in any way (guest posts, articles, ideas, interesting links, advice, financial assistance, or anything else), feel free to contact me via email. Click here to add FrugalNYC to your RSS reader or Subscribe to FrugalNYC by Email.

Logo from QueensLibrary.org