Not alot of my friends go to the library. Most of my more studious friends are internet junkies who can google search just about any topic and get the required results. What most people don’t realize is that public libraries have reinvented themselves quite a bit these days and now you can request a number of different services through them. Some of which you don’t even need to step foot in the library for.
But before I get to that, let me back up a little. Many of you know that my girlfriend, Kim, is of Filipino descent. She and her sister, Rum are the 1st American-born members of their family and have lived their whole lives in the states. As such, they speak only some Tagalog (the “official” language of the Philippines), a little Kampangang (their mother’s dialect) and next to nothing of Ilocano (their dad’s dialect). In fact, they understand a confused mish-mash of the three languages (as their parents use all three for different words). They both have told me that they understand their parents’ languages better than they can speak them, and I think this is true for many who are the children of non-English speaking immigrants.
Anyway, just before I met Kim I had felt the inclination to learn a new language, but I wanted it to be something useful and I never decided on anything. When I started hanging out with Kim’s family it made sense to learn Tagalog as it would be something I could practice with real people. I started picking up a few words here and there and got really excited about it. I don’t speak too much of it but I think I know more than some of Kim’s cousins who’s parents speak Tagalog all of the time. I think my enthusiasm even inspired Kim to have a better understand of her parents’ language. We started developing more of an interest in the language and checked out a few books.
Flipping through a few Tagalog language books only helped me to discover that learning languages exclusively from text is about as engaging as learning music solely from instructional books. Not only is it not fun, it isn’t effective. It’s pretty dull and you NEVER get the pronunciations correctly, no matter how well the authors think they describe it. I was interested in finding some sort of computer-based interactive method or audio CD/Casette course but couldn’t justify purchasing it to myself. I also looked to see if any non-college credit courses existed in Virginia Beach (and to my surprise, the do not). So I kind of gave up for a little while.
Then one day when a Rosetta Stone commercial came on TV, Kim pointed out that Virginia Beach Central Library (where she works) offers free access to their website for library card holders. So a few nights ago we logged on and its actually kind of fun. Basical;y the program throws you in head first and says a few phrases that match up with the pictures. By trial and error, the student is able to learn what the words mean. I think this is kind of the same process that would go on in your head if you were lost in a foreign country and had to figure out what everyone was saying to you. The service would normally run something like 50 bucks a month but through the library it is totally free. You are not restricted by what languages you want to learn, you can browse through the different languages and dabble around. Pretty cool, huh? Pretty amazing, I’d say.
So, in addition to books and CDs, your local library has a ton of online resources. NetLibrary and EBooks are also great services that typically cost money and I understand that most public and academic libraries offer free access to these sites.
The gateway to Virginia Beach’s Electronic Resources is http://vbgov.com/dept/library/electronicresources. I am not sure what Norfolk’s library system has to offer but you can find out at http://www.npl.lib.va.us, and to the best of my knowledge you had to pay for a library card in Chesapeake if you are not a resident. I don’t know any Chesafreaks that read so you can do your own reasearch for that.
The bottom line is that there is more on the internet than myspace. If you are paying taxes then you are already paying for these services, you might as well take advantage of them.
