Blog's From Amy

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my blog. Enjoy! Digital has been present in libraries for many, many years now and it’s only going to keep advancing, so for libraries to remain up-to-date and keep library patrons coming back they need to take advantage of the different ways they can use online sources to promote their libraries. Social media is a great way for a library to promote itself. There are so many different social media platforms that libraries have access to that it seems silly not to take advantage of any of them. Some are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and even Blogs. If a library wants to promote to more people, the best idea would be to utilize more than one of the numerous social media platforms. For example, my city's library, the Virginia Beach Public Library (VBPL) is promoting #NationalBookmobileDay  on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to  call attention to and celebrate all the great work the libraries Literacy Outreach Team has done in ...

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my new blog post. Enjoy! This week I’ve been tasked with researching the specialized programs and services that my library The Virginia Beach Public Library System (VBPL) offers, then researching other libraries similar to mine to see if they have any specialized programs and/or services that mine does not, and then proposing a specialized service and/or program that my library does not already have. Virginia Beach Public Library System offers a lot of great specialized services. It offers assistive tech to individuals who are visually and hearing impaired, Stay & Play Tech, Take Home Tech, as well as other in library services.   There assistive tech offered includes BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download), Jaws 14 (Job Access with Speech) a screen reader, MAGic 12 a magnification and speech program, Open Book 9, optical character recognition software, and Hearing Loop which allows hearing aid user to hear more clearly in noisy envir...

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my blog post! I've lived in Virginia Beach my entire life and I grew up visiting the library when I was able to, but mainly I took advantage of the Bookmobile that stopped at a park near my house every two weeks to feed my love of books and my need to read. The Virginia Beach Public Library System has always offered great services and programs, but over the past, I would say maybe 10 to 15, years they have gotten better and better. That being said, I will be honest and say that I found it very difficult to find any libraries that had services that my home library system did not already have. Many services from what I have been able to ascertain are universal. All the libraries I searched either had many of the services my library had or all the services my library had. I had a bit more luck with the programs, but many were similar just with different names. When I even did find anything that my library didn't have, it wasn't anything that ...

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my blog post. The library that I would like to recognize is the  Virginia Beach Public Library VBPL system as a whole. I live in the city of Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach is the most largely populated city in Virginia that has areas that are rural, suburban, and city like. It also a city that has many libraries. In fact, there are 11 locations including a joint-use library with Tidewater Community College, the Wahab Public Law Library, and a bookmobile for early literacy outreach . I made use of the bookmobile a lot when I was young. It would stop every two weeks at a park near my house.  All of the libraries in Virginia Beach are maintained under the same website.  https://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/libraries/Pages/home.aspx  Noone of them has its own independent website.  Anyone can visit any of the Virginia Beach Public Libraries but to obtain a library card to check out books and/or use library tech...