National Library Week
April 11 – 17, 2010

Please share your story! Tell us how the library has made a difference in your life and help us advocate for the importance of libraries in our community.

I got my first ABC Libraries card shortly after I moved to Albuquerque in 1992. At that time, I had no car & I lived north of Academy & Harper, so I used to walk once a week down to Erna Fergusson, armed with a backpack that I lugged back & forth, emptying & refilling (I've always been a voracious library patron, even with a 3 mile walk each way). Later, when I worked at Borders, I used to see books I wanted to read on the shelves, make a note of them, & then check them out of the library (even with the employee discount, I would rather borrow books than buy them). By this point I had moved downtown, & Main was the branch library I walked to weekly, usually after trolling the website online & placing multiple holds (I especially remember discovering 'Find Similar Items' tab, which has greatly enhanced my searches). Now I work for the library & have my own SmartCard for the computers, which has made it possible for me to go months at a time without paying for computer access at home-spending lunches on the computer at work, or heading to my local branch on my days off-which has been a great help to me financially. I love the library-thanks for the computers, the place to browse, the 3443 items I have checked out over the years!