{"id":390,"date":"2015-08-18T16:27:02","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T16:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/?p=390"},"modified":"2020-08-03T06:57:17","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T06:57:17","slug":"strengthening-community-through-public-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/strengthening-community-through-public-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Strengthening Community through Public Library"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The quality of a community depends directly on&nbsp;its citizens&#8217; access&nbsp;to knowledge.&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imls.gov\/research\/pls_publications.aspx\">Public libraries<\/a>&nbsp;enrich lives and expand opportunities for all citizens by promoting reading and the active use of cultural, intellectual, and information resources.<\/p>\n<p>In a &nbsp;<a title=\"Harris Poll from Harris Interactive, Sept. 22, 2008\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/news\/news\/pressreleases2008\/September2008\/ORSharris\">national poll<\/a> in 2008, almost all Americans (92%) said that they view their public&nbsp;library as an important resource. Seven out of ten agreed that their public&nbsp;library is a pillar of the community (72%), a community center (71%), a family destination (70%), and a cultural center (69%)<\/p>\n<p>Per <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/offices\/sites\/ala.org.offices\/files\/content\/ola\/quotablefacts\/QuotableFacts2010.pdf\">American Library Association<\/a>, Americans check out an average of more than seven books a year from public libraries. They are the number one point of online access for people without internet connections at home, school or work.&nbsp;More than 65% of public libraries provide services for job seekers. Unfortunately,&nbsp; Americans spend more than twice as much on candy as they do on public libraries.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ci.richmond.ca.us\/1128\/About-us\">Richmond Public Library<\/a>&nbsp;near Berkeley traces its root to a resolution passed&nbsp;on August 16, 1907&nbsp;at&nbsp;the Women&#8217;s Improvement Club of Richmond to&nbsp;establish a public library. &nbsp;Its services&nbsp;now include (i) children&nbsp;programs, featuring story hours, puppet shows, handicraft activities, an dial-a-story telephone story telling; (ii) book collection of some 236,000 volumes;&nbsp;(iii) periodical holdings exceeding 700 titles;&nbsp; (iv) microfilm holdings of newspapers and periodicals exceeding 4,000 reels;&nbsp;(v) more than 11,000 phonograph record albums; and&nbsp;(vi) an extensive audiovisual service &#8212; more than 400 films ranging from children&#8217;s cartoons to full-length features. It also provides free legal services and homework help tutoring. The library&nbsp;draws not only Richmond residents, but patrons from the surrounding areas as well.<\/p>\n<p>We are pleased to support the Richmond Public Library.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ramkumarfoundation.agrawal-family.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/hat_tip-e1414475659456.gif\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-100 \" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ramkumarfoundation.agrawal-family.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/hat_tip-e1414475659456-150x150.gif?resize=31%2C31\" alt=\"hat_tip\" width=\"31\" height=\"31\"><\/a>&nbsp; Lucas Maystre<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The quality of a community depends directly on&nbsp;its citizens&#8217; access&nbsp;to knowledge.&nbsp;Public libraries&nbsp;enrich lives and expand opportunities for all citizens by promoting reading and the active use of cultural, intellectual, and information resources. In a &nbsp;national poll in 2008, almost all Americans (92%) said that they view their public&nbsp;library as an important resource. Seven out of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agrawal-family.com\/ramkumarfoundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}