Using Your Public Library for Homeschooling

After the Bible, the library is probably the most valuable resource we homeschoolers have access to, and it amazes me that some people homeschool without it! Even those of us who use it regularly often do not take full advantage of its many resources.

In fact, even though we use the library so faithfully that our librarian refers to us fondly as “my homeschoolers,” we, too, had been neglecting a lot of what the library offers. So I decided to start the year off by encouraging people to use this free and wonderful resource a lot more.

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Using Physical Books from Your Public Library

First of all, of course, a library offers books of all sorts. 

• picture books
• learn-to-read books
• children’s classics
• new and beloved book series (Think Little House, Magic Tree House, etc.)
• non-fiction tomes on every imaginable topic
• literature from the present and from ages past

Librarians, whose job it is to help us find what we are looking for (imagine if we had to pay them for all they do for us!), point us to whatever we ask for. If they don’t have a certain book, we can request it by interlibrary loan, which is usually free as well.

Books About Books

Library books range from the sublime to pure garbage, of course, but there are books about books that can help us find the diamonds in the manure pile. 

Here are just a few suggestions:

• Honey for a Teen’s Heart and Honey for a Child’s Heart
• TruthQuest History series by Michelle Miller
• Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson
• All Through the Ages by Christine Miller
• The Read Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie

I also find quality titles by checking out reviews on GoodReads, Amazon, or book blogs, by subscribing to online newsletters from publishers I trust, and by discussing books with friends.

What if you hear about a relatively new book but don’t have space in the budget (or on the bookshelves) to buy it?  Many libraries allow patrons to suggest purchases for the library. I can make 5 purchase suggestions per month on my card. That’s 60 new books a year, giving us access to the latest homeschooling books, Christian children’s fiction, and more. Besides saving our family a considerable amount of money, this opportunity also lets us influence our community positively with Christian reading material.

If you are worried about overdue fines, you needn’t be. We always have at least 50 books out, usually more than 100, and we pay less than $15 worth of library fines a year. All it takes is being organized most of the time, and we’ve discovered a great library book return system that you can adapt to meet your family’s needs. Some libraries even wave fees for teachers/homeschoolers!

E-books and Audiobooks

In this age of technology we have access to a wealth of digital resources such as e-books and audiobooks. These resources are often more accessible because they are digitally acquired and often multiple licenses are available.

If you have a kindle, or a fire tablet, an iPad, iPhone, etc, you can use your library card to get e-books through apps like Libby and Hoopla.

Every library has a unique catalog of digital resources just like their physical stock is different from other libraries. With digital resources you can often get access to other library cards (non-resident library cards) for digital resources for free!

More Than Just Books at Your Public Library

Furthermore, these days libraries are not only about books. 

Here are a few others things you might find at your local public library:

• movies
• educational DVDs
• periodicals
• music
• book clubs
• writing contests
• homeschooling classes
• museum passes
• kindles/ipads
• many free programs (languages, crafts, story time, writing, chess, lego, job search, scrabble, investing, computers, business planning, health, genealogy, taxes, toastmasters, homework help, travelogues)

While preparing this article, I learned about our library’s online career planning (something I’ve been wanting for my teens) and its free music downloads. So exciting! Of course, ours is a large, multi-branch city library, but even small rural libraries will offer some of these resources, and if you live near a large city you may be able to buy a yearly membership.

Resources for Unit Studies!

Here at The Curriculum Choice we are always curating more book lists by theme to help you with your unit studies. The library is a wonderful way to get access to these books without having to buy them all! It saves so much money!

Our homeschool relies heavily on the library and its resources. In turn, our small country branch of the city-wide library system relies on us throughout the year and during our annual reading week. We love our library, and our sweet librarians love us.

Themed Book Lists for Your Homeschool is a huge collection of themed books to make your search for books on a specific topic easier. We have science topics, holidays, art and music, and more! Plus we are continually adding to it!

Using the Public Library to Enhance Your Nature Study – You don’t need to spend lots of money building a library of nature literature. Using the public library as a source of books is easy and fun.

I hope that you feel encouraged to use your public library and all its resources to benefit your homeschool. 

~ Originally published January 2015