Farmington Library Connects Four Corners to the World

We were very excited to get Douglas Preston in. That was a, you know, big author name to get in. And the main goal of the library, the reason why we do the these things is to connect the four corners to the rest of the world. Whether it’s through the internet with computer usage or our online databases or our wifi, or connecting people with national bestselling authors like Douglas Preston.

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It’s dumb luck and a strong foundation. You have to wait till someone like that is on tour. And specifically coming to New Mexico, of course Farmington, he lives in New Mexico part of the time, part of the year. So that was part of the dumb luck. A lot of New Mexico authors are on New York Times bestseller list. So the other thing was the Farmington Public Library Foundation supported his speaker fee just because it, it is a pretty, it was a pretty exceptional fee. So most states fund their libraries through property tax. New Mexico is very different in that libraries are funded by the gross receipt receipts tax or the sales tax. So we issue library cards to anyone who wants one, regardless of their address. Because if you have come into town and you’ve spent some money, you’ve already contributed to the library. It’s absolutely beneficial for the four corners and for New Mexico, because libraries are for everyone and not being restricted by your address really reinforces that idea of anyone can use the library. So the building opened in 2003. It was on time and under budget. Over here we have the map of the building. It’s in the four winds tradition where you’re born in the east, you grow up in the south, you retire, you do your work in the west, and you retire in the north. So you enter the building from the east. The kids area is in the south, the staff area and non-fiction is in the west. And then fiction and media are in the north. We do a lot to encourage lifelong learning. So we start with the story times. We even have a baby story time. So the minute they’re born, we’re trying to get a book in their, their tiny little hands. So we do a baby story time and then we do a family story time. And then as they get a little older, they have our tween topics, which is, you know, Legos and video games and all the cool stuff. And then they get to aspire to go to the teen zone. ’cause you can’t get into the teen zone unless you’re, you know, 13 years old. So when you’re doing the tween topics, you’re kind of looking over and you’re like, the teens get to do a lot of cool stuff with their teen takeover. And then we transfer that to, you know, young adults with a lot of our book groups. We have a romance readers book group. We have a true crime discussion group. So libraries really are embracing the technology. I, I know people want to say nobody needs libraries anymore because we have the internet, but libraries have become way more important because of the internet. We always say that Google will bring you back 3 million answers, but a librarian will bring you back the correct one. Our librarians are specifically trained to find valid and vetted information, so not internet rumors. So that is their specific training. And we need them now more than ever, our [email protected]. So it’s like Information Highway. If you want to look for events, just click on the events icon in the top right part of the website and then select the event you want. And then you can add it directly to your Google calendar or whatever digital calendar you’re using so that you get a reminder.

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