This week, April 9-15, public libraries, schools, and communities across the country celebrate National Library Week and we would like to take this special occasion to share how the Brainerd Public Library benefits our community.

Historically libraries have served as our nation’s great equalizers of knowledge. A great strength of our library has always been the diversity of our collections and our commitment to serving all people. The Brainerd Public Library now contains almost 80,000 items. In 2011, over 25,500 people had active library cards (that is a 13 percent increase from 2010), and over 325,000 items were checked out (that is a 7.44 percent increase from 2010). We are delighted to see the public’s overwhelming usage of the library!

New programming has also been developed to serve every member in our community. The library now provides three weekly story times, a weekly family movie, computer Q&A, teen programming, summer reading programming, a monthly book club, senior outreach, and more.

The library is a place where everyone can go to discover the world. People of all ages visit the library for research, self-help, literature, or to find their place in the community. With free resources like books, magazines, films, computer and WiFi access, the Brainerd Public Library helps people find new jobs, do better in school, tackle projects and learn new ways to improve themselves.

We are consistently working to provide the best library services possible to our community and we need your support to make it happen. If you would like to know more about the library, please don’t hesitate to contact me at 829-5574 or at bradleyj@krls.org.

Jolene Bradley

Brainerd Public Library

Branch Manager