Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and romance is in the air. It is the time for expressing our love and affection for those who are most important to us, including your public library. My romantic hero often sang me the refrain from Jimmy Buffett’s song, Love in the Library, “…surrounded by stories surreal and sublime, I fell in love in the library once upon a time.” 

In February, we recognize Library Lovers’ Month, which encourages the celebration of libraries of all types. It is a time to highlight and appreciate the value libraries bring to a community. Libraries serve thousands of people every day – including you. The library, at its essence, is a community place. It is something special to everyone who uses it and even to those who don’t. Libraries and their communities enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship; the library provides resources to support the community, and the community devotes a portion of its resources to support the library.

Here are just a few reasons to “Love Your Library”:

• It’s your community’s best preschool learning place.
• It complements your schools and is the parent-preferred after-school place for children and teens.
• It’s a place many people in our community know has all the resources needed for job searches.
• It’s a place to access information in a variety of formats.
• It’s a place where community members gather: for storytimes, book clubs, community meetings, classes, crafting, robotics and coding, and so much more.
• It’s the place for adult literacy needs, from getting an online high school diploma to college information to resources for immigrants learning English.
• It’s the place to access e-government services.
• It’s the place for Internet and information access for anyone in our community.
• It’s the place to get professional help if you want to assess the accuracy and relevance of the information you find.

What about you? What do you love about your library? The staff and volunteers? The programs? The services? Then I encourage you to keep reading because you’ll love what’s happening in your St. Johns County libraries in February.