Celebrate National Library Week From Home

It’s National Library Week — a celebration of libraries, librarians, and library workers and all of the knowledge, resources, and fun they provide to the community. Sounds great, right? We think so, too! However, there’s one little problem… we can’t actually go to the library at the moment.

All Charlotte Mecklenburg Library locations are currently closed due to stay-at-home order but that doesn’t mean you can’t still celebrate National Library Week. The library system has a wide variety of online resources to keep you entertained from the safety and comfort of your home.

With online access to e-books, e-audiobooks, newspapers, virtual storytimes, movies, music, and educational software, you can celebrate National Library Week from anywhere! (Note: You will need a library card to access these digital resources. If you don’t have one, click here to sign up for a virtual card.)

These are six of our favorite digital resources available through Charlotte Mecklenburg Library:

Freegal Music

Do you want to jam out, but you’re tired of listening to your same old music? Freegal offers access to over 10 million songs and 15,000 music videos that’ll get you moving and grooving. – Learn more here.

Hoopla

Are you in a bad mood? Say Hoopla ten times as fast as you can. It’s impossible to be in a bad mood after that! Hoopla lets you instantly borrow e-books, audiobooks, comics, music, movies and more. They describe themselves as “your public library at your fingertips” and they’re not wrong! – Learn more here.

Kanopy

We did it. We watched all of Netflix. So, what do we do now? We could watch The Office for the 90th time or…. we could check out Kanopy! The streaming service has over 30,000 independent and documentary films ready and waiting to be watched. There is also a kids version if you need a stay-at-home substitute teacher for the day. – Learn more here.

OverDrive/Libby

With OverDrive (or the companion app, Libby) you can check out up to 20 e-books at a time. Whoever is out there reading 20 books at one time, we are very impressed. – Learn more here.

RBdigital Magazines

Okay, we might now be able to read 20 books at once, but we could maybe handle reading 20 magazines at once. RBdigital Magazines lets you read the current issues of popular magazines, including Rolling Stone, Newsweek, National Geographic and more! – Learn more here.

Lynda.com

A lot of people are using this time at home to pick up a new skill or brush up on an old one. The educational site lynda.com has over 3,000 courses and 130,000 videos to help you gain some expertise in something new. The website usually requires a subscription but with your library card, you gain free access. From photography to accounting to web design, there’s a lynda.com subject for everyone. – Learn more here.

To learn about even more digital resources available during Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s closure, click here. Happy reading!