Request From: Anonymous
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Without formal park district recreational programs that are indoors in our community, local moms rely heavily on the local libraries for an enriching place to go with our young kids and get out of the huse and the heat. My baby is almost two, and we go pretty regularly to the weekly story hour and crafts that Miss Julie does on Fridays at the library. We really enjoy this, and would love to see more of this kind of drop in programming. We used to go to the one that was offered at Key Largo library, that was discontinued due to a staffing shortage. I'm glad to hear that will be starting up again at least for the summer soon.
The thing that struck me first about the library when we moved to Islamorada last year was the modest building itself. For our needs, the book collection (including board books) and community room space is the most important feature.
I have been able to get fairly recent books from the system for my own reading, and for my book club without an unreasonable wait.
Going back to kids books, I like that both the KL and Islamorada libraries have significant holdings of books that are NOT related to Disney, television cartoons and programs, It is important to consider this as corporate marketing takes over so many public spaces, that it can be difficult for parents to find sources of entertainment, and enrichment for our kids particularly as we are trying to keep our kids away from TV and the marketing of products to kids. It can be difficlut to even find shoes without a TV character on them, so we appreciate the abundance of books and would like to see more of them and movies available without the tie-ins. For example, Milo and Otis is an example of a great story for kids shot on a farm and starring a dog and a cat.
I visit the library these days about once every two weeks, more often as it gets hotter. I appreciate the improvements to the playground behind the Islamorada library and the extending of park hours. We would use it a lot more often if there were more shade. We seem to be having a population boom recently of babies under 3 and this would help the park serve the population much better since sun exposure is a significant threat to babies and toddlers.
More building space and activities programming should be the priorities for library. I'm aware of the internet resources and have done searches for CDs online,from home and found it useful, but its not always evident to the user how to search for a CD for example. We were looking for musicals on CD at the time (audio only). The library could be a great tool in the direction of introducing kids to the arts with more faciltiies space and programs, but the story hour is a decent start. If you put out the word, parents would likely be willing to help staff some of these activiities.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment. Public spaces are so crucial to foster and protect in the Keys.
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