Hey there,
Raise your hand if you like the library! Scratch that. Raise your hand if you love the library. My daughter and I are over here waving our hands in the air. It would be an understatement to say we “like” the library. We visit the library at a minimum of 1-2x per week. We mostly visit the libraries within our county, but we’ve branched out quite a bit in the last year or so. It’s fun to see the variety in children’s areas, layouts of the buildings, programming, etc. I recently learned about MELSA (Metropolitan Library Service Agency). Which is actually what piqued my interest in “branching” out. Ha! Get it? What is MELSA you may ask? Well, I’m here to tell you. It’s one of the 12 regional public library systems in the state of Minnesota. And within this region, fall 8 counties, all of which have multiple library locations. All 8 of these regions work together; which means you can link your county library card with any one of these counties to check out and return books ANYWHERE within this system. That’s over 100 libraries. If you don’t think that’s cool, I’m not sure we’d get along so well. When I found out about this news I almost fainted right there at the library desk. It was like a dream come true. I get to visit all these libraries, pick from thousands of books, attend different story times with my daughter, and travel to different places on top of it. Anyway, book nerd over here thinks this is the best thing since sliced bread. I hate that saying by the way, so I’m not sure why I used it there.
So, after learning about this wonderful library system and cooperation, I decided my daughter and I should try to visit every location within MELSA. A challenge for sure, but definitely attainable considering we live in the metro area, and all of these libraries fall within an hour of the metro. I mean, technically speaking, they are all considered the “metro area,” but I mean within an hour of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I began looking up the different counties and library locations and I set a goal out to visit at least one new one every month. I linked up my library card to 4 of these counties and we had fun trying new libraries and checking out fun new books and items that may not be available at my local library. Each library has it’s own unique characteristics and my daughter always comments on how many things they have to do in the children’s area. Not all of them are as extravagant as Stillwater, I’ll tell you that right now. But we’re able to find joy and have a little fun at each location we visit. Stillwater is by far our favorite by the way.
One day, we were on our way to a new library in a different county that we hadn’t linked up with yet. It was one of the bigger regions so I wanted to know how many separate library locations this county had. The system was St. Paul Public Library and there are 13 locations by the way. But this is nothing compared to Hennepin County. HC has FORTY-ONE locations. That deserved all caps because holy cow! These 2 library systems also have “library passports” so you can check off each location you visit. As they should, considering they have so many that even just visiting all locations in that county is a feat. But anyway, as we were driving I got to thinking and just like The Grinch, I got an idea. An awful idea. I got a wonderful, awful idea; we’re going to set out on an adventure to visit every public library in the state of Minnesota!
You. Are. Crazy. That’s what you’re thinking isn’t it? That just might be true, but so are people who run ultra-marathons for fun (ahem, my wife). Big, huge goals like this tend to scare people. People think these sorts of things aren’t possible simply because they’re long and hard processes. We never got to the finish line by cutting corners. Your watch doesn’t lie. If you only ran 25 miles you didn’t run the marathon okay? Okay that’s harsh. You basically did, but persistence is what I’m actually talking about. Hard things can also be fun things. My goal for this crazy idea is to visit all 381 locations by September 1st, 2040. This is because 2040 is the year my daughter will graduate from high school. So what better goal to have than that. After graduation, any locations we didn’t hit over the years, we can map out and take the ultimate Minnesotan road trip. A mom can dream right? Who knows, maybe she’ll be a teenager who wants nothing to do with this quest anymore and maybe I’ll have to continue on alone? Sad day if that ever happens. I’m not sure it will since I’ve influenced her to love books and we have to take our library bag anywhere we go so she can read to herself in the backseat, and of course in case we find ourselves at a library.
I’ve received a lot of criticism on this new idea. Basically people think it’s impossible and they get freaked out about the ones 6 hours away. Ever heard of a road trip? We like those in our family. Especially because road trips = snacks. And we love snacks. I’m sure people think it’s a waste of time too. If you’re not into reading and such, it might be a waste of time for you. But around here, we read and then get anxious about all the books we’ll never get to read before we die. I guess if that’s all I have to be anxious about, then it’s a dang good life. But anyways, I hope you follow along with my 14 year journey to see all the libraries. And maybe it will inspire you to check out some new ones too. That’s all for now.
Talk soon,
Corrah
