Drake Public Library

Seeking Excellence

Library Board

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‘Tis the Season for giving

Lit Christmas tree in library

Drake Public Library Christmas tree on main floor courtesy of the Friends of the Library.

The holidays are a time for giving. This year why don’t you consider giving a gift to Drake Public Library. After all, giving has always been an integral part of the library’s history.  Its very creation was made possible by a gift from Gov. Francis M. Drake in 1901.

Our library has a reputation for excellence. Its reputation has been earned … through the hard work of the library staff, the support of government agencies, and the support of individuals within the community. But excellence doesn’t just happen. It takes the right materials and personnel to make the library successful. In order to maintain the quality of the services the library currently provides, additional funds are needed.

Throughout the years the operating expenses of the library have been generously cared for via public funds. However, more recently, public funds no longer even cover day-to-day expenses. So the library needs our donations just to remain open. All donations to help our library are tax-deductible and 100% of all donations go to support the library. There are several ways to give to Drake Public Library.

First, you can give directly to the library by purchasing books or other materials in your name or in honor or in memory of a loved one. Contact our Library Director, Jami Livingston for details. Book plates can be placed in the books to indicate your donation if you desire.

You can also give by becoming a member of the Friends of Drake Public Library. Memberships are just $5 for an individual or $10 for a family. Giving a membership to another person would be a super gift. Consider giving a little more and become a Friends’ Sponsor. The Friends do so much for the library. Please click on the “Friends” tab on the menu bar above for more information about this organization and how you can help.

Finally, the Library Board is excited to announce the establishment of the Drake Public Library Foundation in January 2015. This private, tax-exempt, charitable organization has the support of our library as its sole purpose. Its board is made up of local volunteers and all donations are tax-deductible. The foundation is set up to receive any bequests and other planned gifts. The most rewarding part of making a planned gift is the knowledge that generations of children and adults will be transformed by the library thanks to the resources you have accumulated during your lifetime. For the new year please resolve to name Drake Public Library as a beneficiary of your will.

So, for the holidays, why don’t you relax, put your feet up and enjoy a good book – from the Drake Public Library, of course.

 

 

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The Universal Eligibility to Be Noble

If you ask any frequent Library user—or anyone who regularly volunteers their time on behalf of the Library—why the Library is important to them, you’ll probably hear motives that, when boiled down, resemble each other more than they differ. I was exposed to books and the near-infinite scope of humanity’s written word chiefly by my Aunt Sue, a long-time elementary teacher in the Des Moines area, and supreme advocate for childhood bookworm-ism. Sue got books in my hands; and maybe more importantly and in a casual, not-on-purpose way, she intimated how books could be acquired and just how incredibly much material was out there to be perused. Through her influence I became a precocious natural scientist (depending on the day, a zoologist, a geologist, a paleontologist, or an incipient cosmologist). My ever-growing collection of references on mammals, reptiles, rocks and minerals, and whatever else, described for me a wondrous reality. I was so enamored, so completely taken by my passion for these subjects, that my quest for information soon transcended any work-like quality and became my chosen medium of entertainment. Reading was then and forever a part of my gestalt.

What motivates me to serve on the Drake Public Library Board of Trustees derives from the formation of my worldview through books as a young person. I believe the public Library is necessary to any community as the best,—and possibly only—most democratic way to offer all citizens the opportunity to discover and shape their worldviews. In the world of 2014, access to the varied media by which we take our information and entertainment has become of the highest importance if we are to maintain a society of informed individuals with well-formed concepts of how the world around us actually is. To allow the user to sample and pursue the collected ideas of all of written human history—free and without bias—is the hallmark of the Library alone.

Consider the Lobster bookI jotted notes on the ideas above while passing a slow day glassing desert bighorn sheep in the Gabbs Valley mountain range of western Nevada. On this trip I packed a paperback of David Foster Wallace’s non-fiction. With all the space and quiet, and this blog piece on my mind, a quote of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s begged my attention: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Maybe it was reading Wallace that invoked Wittgenstein, or maybe it was the library/worldview thinking; but, at any rate, the quote must be included for its own sheer validity. And so, I’m proud to write to you on our new Drake Public Library website, another tool for accessing the noble and unfettered warehouse of ideas called the public Library.

Pete Lind
President, Drake Public Library Board of Trustees